


Thicker than Water

by AllAloneintheRain



Category: Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, all the gang, like they can totally feel family, mmmm yummy, pack mentality, prerequisite surf nazis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllAloneintheRain/pseuds/AllAloneintheRain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lost Boys rule Santa Carla. But there is that tricky feeling that always lets them know, sometimes family comes to you. And you need to grab it before it runs screaming down the beach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's all about the Mentality

Rating: M for language, gore, and possibly other stuff. 

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that was in the movie Lost Boys. Not in movie? Mine. In movie? Theirs. I also do not own ‘We Built This City’ by Starship.

A/N: I had this idea and it wouldn’t leave me alone. It’s a little hard to work on another fic when an idea won’t shut up. So I’ll get this out and then finally finish the chapter for my other fic. Sorry guys!

Thicker than Water 

Chapter One: It’s all about the Mentality 

Santa Carla was the home of monsters at night. 

There was no obvious distinction between the day and night. No sign that said “Watch out after 8:00 o’clock.” There was only a chill coming off of the ocean and a heady thrum of pulsing bodies as music echoed along the boardwalk. 

It was instinctive that those who cared for their lives would gradually leave, group by group, families then couples then friends, until only the brave, the foolish, and the dangerous remained. 

This made Santa Carla the perfect place for the Lost Boys to hunt. 

The sun’s final rays were gently caressing the boardwalk’s rides and the beach front. 

At Hudson’s Bluff, sunk into the very fabric of the land, the carcass of a once opulent hotel was barely visible inching out through the overgrown brush surrounding it. 

A set of rickety wooden stairs with a large chain above the first steps wrapped around the handrails led into the abyss below. The chain was adorned with a sign that said “NO TRESPASSING! Hudson’s Bluffs Sea Cave is closed due to unsafe conditions.” Another sign proclaimed, “Warning: ~~High risk of roof cave-ins, undertow, drowning, unstable walk ways, and falling rocks.~~ Vampires.” 

Inside was a large open space, the former hotel’s lobby, lit faintly by cracks and crevasses in the ceiling that allowed the fading sunlight to shine in. There was junk, cobwebs, cloth, animal bones, and other rubbish shoved to the corners of the large room. Metal barrels were interspersed between each area of the room, in addition, there were candelabras and regular candles that were placed on ledges. 

A faded mural was painted on a far wall, “The Atlantis Hotel! The new Valencia for a new city!” There were painted couples and families, walking arm-in-arm with each other and smiling while pointing at the city. The hotel was prominently displayed in the background. 

The room itself was an eclectic mix of different styles and mismatched furniture with a dash of chaos. 

The marble remnants of an old fountain was situated off kilter from the center of the room with a large intricate crystal chandelier was broken off and rested into the fountain’s basin, comfortably nestled as if it was made for its resting place. In a prominent location, off kilter just like the fountain itself, was a battery powered boom-box. It was a large number, a silver Sanyo, that could catch all the radio frequencies and play cassettes to perfection. Behind the fountain was a large portrait of Jim Morrison hanging in pride of place along the wall nearest to the boom-box. 

Along one wall was an area that was occupied by both pigeons and doves. Surrounding the area were wind chimes made of wire and water-polished sea shells and colored glass that had bits of labels still attached to them. Pieces of paper and some drawing pencils littered a small circle just within the wind chimes circumference. 

Further down the wall there was an old couch, plaid, that was covered in different blankets of various designs, though the majorities were of Indian designs, and large pillows along the armrests. At the left side of the couch was a battered bookcase, three shelves high and leaning slightly under the weight of the books piled upon it. There were titles ranging from literary classics to contemporary novels. On top of the bookcase was a number of children’s books ranging from _The Chronicles of Narnia_ to _Charlotte’s Web_. 

Near the couch, slightly in front of the bookcase, was an area on the floor that was padded with some flattened dirty pillows. In a little crate against the wall was a small collection of toys: a baseball and two gloves, some green army men, a pogo ball, and around three micro machines. 

In an area across from the couch and bookcase was a small alcove. Within the alcove was an old, battered wheelchair that had a small white cloth covering the seat and there were no leg rests attached to the wheelchair. There was an old chest behind the wheelchair that was covered in dust except for in three locations: the lock and on both sides near either end in the front of the chest. There was a statue of a woman, kneeling, in a loose, flowing dress holding an urn to the right of the wheelchair. There was a tall, brass candelabrum that was filled with thin, skinny candles. On the woman’s statue short candles that had obviously been used many times evidenced by the wax that had dried along the sides of them. 

At one corner of the room pushed against a wall was an explosion of color formed by many different swatches of flimsy see-through cloth. In the center of the cloth cocoon was a king sized bed with multitudes of small pillows and worn out yellowed sheets. On the right side was a dresser that was covered in make-up and a multitude of different hair products. 

There were two figures curled up on opposite sides of the bed, sharing the same blanket, the same space, but they did not touch, did not interact in any unconscious manner at all.

One was a boy. A small lad with a mop of unruly tangled hair that was similar in color to aged straw was sprawled, one arm above his head and one under his stomach. His legs were spread; one angled towards his upper body, the other was pointed toward the foot of the bed as if he had fallen asleep mid-stretch. He had on a grey coat that was vaguely reminiscent of a high school band member’s performance jacket. 

The other prone figure was a teenage girl. She had curly dark chocolate hair and lightly tanned skin. Her entire body was curled up into the fetal position with her hands clasped together and placed under her left chin. Her knees gently bumped her elbows and her entire body was curled into an almost perfect ‘C’. She was dressed in a white spaghetti-strap shirt that had an overlay of eyelet lace. 

The girl began to stir as the final rays of sunlight disappeared from the sky. 

Almost instantaneously whoops and hollers were heard coming from farther within the room. 

Both the girl and boy startled awake. The girl woke up with a look of barely suppressed fear whilst the boy jerked up with excitement gleaming in his eyes.

Two boys appeared out of the dark, seemingly to just appear out of thin air, hanging off of each other with their arms around the other’s shoulders. Both were laughing loudly and grinning from ear to ear. They walked together till they got to the fountain where they separated. The taller one went over to and began to fiddle with the boom-box whilst the shorter went over to the birds in the corner. 

After the boys came and went a dark haired one appeared. He paused and glanced back behind his shoulder at the tall young man who was walking a few steps behind him. The brunet cocked an eyebrow before turning back around and sitting on the couch closest to the bookcase. 

The little boy leaped off of the bed and ran over to the couch, claiming a seat next to the brunet. He looked up at him and grinned widely as the boy reached over and ruffled his already messed up hair. 

The blond man took precedence in the wheelchair. He moved the chair slightly so that it was facing the entire room, reigning over all within it like a king. He crossed one of his legs onto the knee of his other leg. Then he propped his elbow onto his leg and rested his chin into the palm of his open hand. 

The girl cautiously made her way off of the bed and moved to the dresser where she began to tame the flattened bird’s nest that her hair had become while she was sleeping during the day. 

_We built this city, we built this city_

“WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK ‘N ROLL!” The blond with the boom-box shouted out at the top of his lungs. He jumped up onto the ledge of the fountain and began to circle around and dance enthusiastically all while singing loudly. 

The girl flinched slightly and sprayed hairspray on each of the layers of her hair before bumping it out to give her hair more volume. Feeling along her head she decided that she was satisfied with how her hair fell before taking up some of the make-up laying on the chest and beginning to apply it softly to her face. 

The two blonds were beginning to get louder dancing around each other at the fountain. The little boy left the couch before running over to the dancing boys and jumping up onto the fountain with them. 

“Hey little man Laddie! Wanna dance?” The shorter boy called out gleefully. 

“Yeah, Marko!” The little boy cheered before jumping up and down enthusiastically, banging his head to the music pouring out of the boom-box. 

“What do you think he came over for Marko? Some milk?!” The tall boy asked the shorter boy cheekily. 

“No Paul, I thought you needed someone to help you around in your old age!” Marko replied in a snarky manner. 

“Hey David! When are we leaving? I’m hungry!” Paul turned around and asked the man on the wheelchair, never pausing his dancing. 

“I don’t know. Hey, Marko, are you hungry?” David spoke. 

“Eh, maybe. How about you Dwayne, are you?” 

“Am I what?” The brunet Dwayne smirked at his brothers. 

“No! Guys! Let’s just grab someone to eat!” Paul interrupted before the boys could really catch their rhythm. 

“Alright, boys, Star, let’s go.” David spoke as he stood up and made his way past all of the boys. 

The girl, Star, turned around and looked over at all of them. Paul, Marko, and Laddie were happily moving towards the entrance of the cave. Dwayne had paused, looking at her with narrowed eyes. 

Star moved towards the entrance, cautiously skirting by Dwayne. She was walking slowly until she heard a low growl behind her then she ran to the outside world. 

It was hardly a minute later that all of the Lost Boys were situated on the motorcycles that were parked outside the cave. 

“Well boys, let’s go eat.”

With that the cycles shot off like rockets, speeding dangerously through the forest that surrounded Hudson’s Bluff and landing in a spray of sand onto the beach and boardwalk. 

The cheerful screams echoed in front of the group, heralding their approach and causing tourists and natives alike to move to the edge of the boardwalk as the four motorcycles roared through the crowds. 

Skidding to a stop at the far end of the boardwalk the boys waited impatiently for Star and Laddie to get off of the bikes. 

“Come on. Come on. Come on.” Marko and Paul both chanted in unison. When Star finally untangled her long dress from David’s bike they cheered in enthusiastic relief. 

“God damn, finally!” Paul sighed out as he leaned his upper body along his bike’s handlebars. 

“Stay with Laddie, Star.” David ordered, not even glancing in the direction of the woman that had ridden with him. 

All of the boys rode off except for Dwayne. He revved his bike but did not move, instead turning to look at Star with dark, intense eyes. 

“Don’t lose Laddie again Star.” He growled out, lips twisted up into an ugly sneer. He turned his bike toward where the group had rushed off to and left swiftly, kicking sand from the boardwalk onto Star. 

Dwayne quickly caught up with the other boys and was soon grinning along with all of them as they left the boardwalk behind and flew over the sand, eyes focused on the flames of a large bonfire near the ocean and ears filled with the loud, obnoxious music of Santa Carla’s resident Surf Nazis.

They left their bikes along a darkened patch of sand and noticed that there was another bike already sitting there. 

It was a burgundy Madura 1200 that had a few saddlebags that were almost completely falling off of the bike. Poking out of one of the saddlebags was the handle of a heavy wooden baseball bat. 

Marko hopped off his bike and practically skipped over to the bike. He opened the saddlebag slightly until he was able to pull the bat out and look at it. 

“Oooh! A Louisville slugger!” He whistled. “I had one of these a long time ago!”

“We don’t care! Food, Marko, food. Come on!” Paul whined as he looked up towards the sky. 

“Leave the bat. You can grab it after we eat.” David spoke up before he began to float upwards. 

Marko looked at the bat in his hand before shrugging his shoulders and putting the bat back in the saddlebag with a small grin on his face. He looked up at his brothers before a malicious grin spread on his face as he lifted up to join them. 

They sped off into the night air and landed within the scrub brush atop of one of the dunes near the bonfire. 

“Which one do you want?” Paul asked almost instantaneously, licking his lips and staring in rapt attention at the small group of partying teenagers below. 

“Fuck, it looks like a sausage fest!” Marko complained looking over at the  
unappetizing party of four males, three teens and one adult, occurring below them. 

“Is there any chicks there? These dudes taste like fucking shit!” Paul opened up with his opinion. 

“You’ll eat what’s put in front of you.” David began to lecture at the two complaining vampires. 

Dwayne turned back to the party ignoring the brewing argument behind him in favor of looking over the partying men below. He noticed a figure; a girl of around seventeen dressed in a long black skirt and a black sweater was sitting huddled onto one of the large pieces of ocean polished driftwood. He tilted his head watching as one of the Surf Nazis tried to pull the girl up to dance and she shrugged his arm off violently. 

When the Surf Nazi began to get more physical with her by grabbing a hank of her dark brown hair Dwayne felt a cold burn begin in his stomach and he felt his features begin to twist into the vampiric form. A single word echoed endlessly within his mind. 

_Pack. Pack. Pack. Pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack pack._

“David!” He growled out harshly. 

David, Paul, and Marko stopped their argument mid-sentence and turned as one to look at Dwayne. 

Dwayne stood up and walked behind the boys where he began to pace. 

“Woah, man, what’s up?” Marko looked at Dwayne with confused worry. 

“Take a good look at the people down there and tell me what you feel.”

“What? Like which one would make a good shish-ka-bo-“ Paul was cut off by a voice speaking succinctly below. 

“Is this a private party or can anyone join?” 

Dwayne glanced down at the group below again. 

Standing around ten feet from the party itself just outside of the bright light of the bonfire stood a small young woman. She was in a white dress that stopped two inches before her knees, black combat boots, a leather jacket, and white leather gloves. Her hair was thrown up in a messy bun at the nape of her neck. 

The feeling welled up in him again. 

_Pack. Pack. Pack. Pack._

“Shit, are those chicks what I think they are?” Paul asked his eyes widened. 

“Looks like it boys. We’re getting some sisters.” David spoke calmly although his eyes were two pinpoints of blazing amber. 

“Well?” The woman interrupted the boys’ conversation. 

The Surf Nazi that had grabbed the girl within the group moved in front of her. He seemed to tower over her short frame. He looked her up and down and licked his lips while rubbing at the stubble on his chin. 

“I think we could make an exception for you baby. The chick we have is a frigid little bitch anyway.” 

Laughter broke out among the partyers behind him almost instantly. 

The woman looked at the girl on the log out of the corner of her eye before moving all of her attention to the Surf Nazi in front of her. She mischievously smiled. 

“You know what? If you wait right here for me, I’m going to get something that will make our time so much more fun, and if you don’t move I will give you a very big surprise. Will you stay here for me, baby?”

The Surf Nazi shifted his weight from left to right to left again before grinning broadly at her. 

“I won’t move a muscle.”

“Good, this is going to be very fun for me.”

She turned and ran back towards the roads at a swift clip. The girl just watched as the woman ran off with a smirk that grew wider the farther she got. The men at the party below laughed raucously whilst the men on top of the dune became more agitated. 

“What the hell is she going to do?” Marko asked incredulously. 

“I don’t know and I don’t like it. David, let’s just take care of these assholes. We can take the girls back to the cave.” Dwayne grumbled his pacing becoming faster until he resembled a mountain cat trapped in a cage. 

“We should wait. We need to see where the girls will be before we do anything. Do you want them to get caught in any crosshairs?” David retorted, his voice soft but mocking. 

Surprisingly, Paul was the only one that was completely calm. He was standing further back on the very apex of the dune and was staring off into the distance where the woman had run off to. 

The wicked grin that lit his face brightened all of his features with a chilling sort of light. 

“I don’t think we need to do anything.” He said, still staring into the night. 

Marko turned on him swiftly. 

“Seriously? What the fuck! You want to just leave the chicks to these douche bags?”  
Paul shrugged carelessly. 

“Nah, not leave them. I just don’t think that they need any help from us.” 

David glanced at Paul over his shoulder. “What do you know that I don’t?” His voice was venomous and his fangs were bared. 

“Oh, nothing really, I just have an idea.” He glanced away from David before brightening up again. 

“Dwayne! Stop pacing like a pussy and get down here. I think we all will not want to miss this!” He exclaimed joyfully whilst dropping on the sand beside Marko. 

Dwayne stopped pacing and moved to kneel down on the other side of Paul. David stayed where he was but shifted his weight and head until he had a clear unobstructed view of the party below. 

All of them stopped moving as they heard the soft pounding of rapidly approaching footsteps on sand. 

The Surf Nazi had turned his head to talk with the other partyers behind him and as such did not see it coming. 

The woman was returning at an even greater speed. She no longer wore her leather jacket, gloves, or boots but she did have a wooden Louisville slugger clasped tightly in her right hand. 

The woman ran up to the Surf Nazi and never stopping her movement swung the wooden bat with all her strength into the side of his head. It made a sickening crack but the man fell to his knees, dazed but not unconscious. She swiftly kicked him between the knees as he tried to regain his bearings before bringing the bat down on his head again. He fell to the ground in an unconscious heap but the woman raised and lowered the bat two more times into his skull. 

On the upswings splashes of blood and skin went flying onto her and the sand around her. 

The men behind the group’s leader were temporarily stunned into inaction. 

The woman stopped beating the man’s face after his breathing began to stutter. 

“You don’t touch girls who don’t want to be touched.” She snarled out teeth bared at all of those gathered. 

Her voice seemed to snap the group out of their daze as one of the more burly members ran at her. 

She didn’t move, simply adjusted her grip on the bat before shoving it in a thrust into the center of the boy’s chest. The air was forced out of his lungs in an audible ‘oomph’ and he doubled over nearly as fast. The woman raised the bat and brought it down with all of the force she could onto the back of the boy’s exposed head. He fell to the ground facedown but breathing. 

The last two boys rushed her together. She swung low and connected with the kneecap of the one who reached her first but did not have time to raise the bat again before the second one barreled her over and pinned her hands with his knees.

He raised his fist and took a shot. The explosion of flesh on flesh contact reverberated through the still night air. The woman who was struggling underneath him grunted lowly at the contact causing the boy to get more angry and frustrated. He raised his fist again but the blow never connected. 

Instead the left side of his face was practically destroyed by the force of the blow that hit him. The woman below watched as in one stroke the skin and muscle that constituted his cheek was torn off and the bone beneath shattered. Teeth went flying from his mouth in a macabre spray of confetti. She closed her eyes as blood sprayed her face and neck. 

The boy fell off of her and put both hands to his face screaming and crying in both fear and pain. 

Standing behind him was the girl who had been sitting on the log. In her hands was the blood-stained bat and on her face was a wry grin. 

The woman pushed herself to her feet before taking the bat away from the girl and walking to the ocean in front of her. She kneeled down and washed the blood from the bat first before cupping it and scrubbing at the residue that was on her skin. 

“Are you alright Allison?” She turned and questioned the girl. 

The girl didn’t respond verbally but she happily nodded her head to the question. 

“Ready to go back to the hotel room?” She questioned the girl again. 

Again she received a happy nod as a response. 

“Well alright then, let’s go.”

She leisurely moved through the collection of bodies on the sand and the girl, Allison, fell into easy step beside her showcasing the differences in the height of the two girls. 

As they walked away Allison moved her chin to where it rested on the shorter girl’s shoulder. 

“Thanks.” Her husky voice was loud in the stillness of the night even though she had whispered. 

The short woman turned to look at her before smiling and bringing her arm up to wrap around the taller girl’s shoulders. 

“Don’t mention it. After all, what are sisters for?”

She squeezed Allison’s shoulders before letting go. Allison removed her head from the short woman’s shoulder and got back in step with her. 

At the top of the dune the Lost Boys looked down at the scene below them in incredulous joy. 

“Did you see that? That was awesome. When are we going to talk to them? When are we going to introduce our lifestyle? They’re perfect for it already! When – where is Paul going?”

Marko’s rant was cut short by Paul hopping up and cheerfully making his way down the dune to the group of injured men below. 

He turned to face them, face twisted into a demonic form, eyes amber, fangs extended before laughing loudly. 

“Waste not, want not, right?”

He practically skipped over to the boy that was still clutching at his knee and staring at Paul in horror. The boy’s eyes widened before he began to scream although it turned into a gurgle almost as soon as it had begun. 

The other Lost Boys either grinned or smirked as they too made their way down the hill to the sitting feast below.


	2. Go Away Neo-Maxie Dweebs

Disclaimer: I do not own the work of fiction this is based on. In movie? Theirs. Not in movie? Mine. 

Thicker than Water 

Chapter Two: Go Away Neo-Maxie Dweebs

At the Sea & Sand Inn, one block from the boardwalk and beach, in one of the numerous rooms sat three girls in a room of two queen beds. 

The room itself was opulent, large and decorated with copper metal and dark blue fabrics. There was a small sitting area comprised of two stuffed chairs and a small coffee table in between them. Sitting across from the sitting area was a television with a VCR hooked up to it. 

On one of the beds sat two brunettes. One’s hair was nearly black and cut in such a way that it looked as if someone had just taken a knife and cut off parts that annoyed the owner. She wore a pair of black stirrup pants and a white long-sleeved turtleneck. She had black reeboks on her feet and they were propped up and crossed on the headboard. The other’s hair was a light coppery brown and was thrown up in a high bun at the top of her head. The left side of her face was a mess of purpled skin, large bruises decorating it from forehead to cheekbone. Her eye was swollen but she seemed to be able to keep it open. She had on a dark green tank top and a pair of black denim shorts. Her feet were hanging off the edge of the bed and her head was resting on the dark-haired brunette’s stomach. 

Both brunettes were reading. The dark one was reading a horror novel whilst the light   
one was reading a book on French history. She looked suitably bored. 

On the other bed was a red head. She had on a white button down shirt with a pink sweater tied around her neck. She was wearing a brown knit mini-skirt and had on pale pink leggings leading to knee high brown leather boots. 

She was leaning against the headboard staring intently into the mirror as she was applying red lipstick to her upper lip. She had just finished marking the left half of her top lip and was slowly making a perfect line on the right side when a loud brayed “HA” caused her to jump and strike lipstick along her porcelain cheek. 

“What the hell, Allison? What’s your damage?” She turned to glare at the dark brunette, her beautiful face twisted into a nasty scowl. 

“The monster just killed three of the kids. It was a bloodbath!” Allison responded gleefully, baring all of her teeth over at the girl on the opposing bed. 

“Really? How’d it do it?” Questioned the copper brunette glancing over at her headrest’s face. 

“Well,” The dark haired girl drawled, “it had ripped the head and spine out of the jock, given the prom queen a lobotomy before tearing her heart out, and then just gave a fatal vivisection to the nerd.”

“Juicy.” 

The brunettes both grinned at each other. The red head glanced over and sneered at the both of them. 

“You both are totally disgusting.” 

“Oh, come on Claire.” The light haired brunette moaned as she raised herself up to sit straight. “It’s just a bit of fun!”

“Really, Rebekah! You think that reading about people being brutally murdered in fun?” 

Rebekah just stared at Claire before smiling wider. She nodded enthusiastically. 

“Why not?” Allison drawled. 

Both of the other girls turned their attention to her. Rebekah raised an eyebrow in response but smiled slightly. 

“The world is full of shitty people doing shitty things. Why can’t we have a little bit of a morbid sense of humor? Let me enjoy the fact that I’m not the only messed up person in the world.” 

“You’re both screwed.” 

Claire snorted and grabbed a tissue and began to rub the lipstick off of her cheek. 

“Well, at least we’re not living in a fairy-tale world of naivety.” Rebekah responded staring intently at Claire. 

Claire jerked forward sneering into Rebekah’s face. 

“Just because I’m not a sick, twisted, worthless individual doesn’t mean that I’m living in a made-up world! It’s people like you and Allison that makes this place a shithole. People who are ambivalent towards their fellows and don’t give a flying fuck what happens in the world.”

“Hey now, I care. I don’t want children in Pakistan to have to fight to survive. I think that we all should have a good chance at this life. But you know what? All of us have these short meaningless ant lives and after that running start people turn to shit. They stop helping people and become selfish greedy bastards. So what if I stop caring about others and I only care about me and mine?” 

Rebekah leaned forward and stared into Claire’s eyes intently. 

Claire glanced away quickly before regrouping and sneering at Rebekah again. 

“Well, I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand my, and everyone who is normal, point of view.” 

“What does that mean?” 

Both of the arguing girls turned to look at Allison who had put her book down onto her stomach. 

“I mean people who were raised by a parent that has no morals. You both would have had a chance at being likeable if you hadn’t had a whore for a mother.” 

Allison flinched. Rebekah’s face clouded over with repressed anger as she turned away from Allison towards Claire. 

“What does that make your father?”

“What?” Claire blinked.

“Your daddy? The man who fucked my mother and got her knocked up? The thirty year old who promised the eighteen year old girl that he was going to marry her before knocking her up and running like a fucking coward? The man who cheated on your mother when you were a year old? What does that make him?” 

Claire stood up abruptly. She grabbed her brown leather jacket and smoothly pulled it on, running her hands along it to remove any wrinkles that were formed in it. 

“My father was an idiot. He betrayed my mother and me. I hate him but he’s my father. He pays for everything I ever needed or wanted. The worst thing he has ever done to me though was make me go to California with his bastard child and her half-sister.” 

With that Claire swept from the hotel room, slamming the door behind her in a fit of pique. 

Rebekah jumped to her feet and began to pace while biting her left fist and growling. She walked over to Claire’s bed and screamed before kicking over the pale pink suitcase that had been standing on the left side of the bed. 

Allison said nothing, she merely watched as her sister worked herself up into a rage. 

Rebekah’s nostrils flared and she made a few more revolutions around the room before tossing herself into one of the chairs at the far end of the room and propping her feet up onto the coffee table. 

Allison tilted her head as she stared at her sister. She leaned over the edge of the bed and hung off of it as she grabbed a sketchpad and a few charcoal pencils off of the ground. She huffed as she righted herself before opening the pad to a blank page and began a sketch of her sister. 

Rebekah had her eyes closed and was breathing deeply through her nose, flaring the nostrils unattractively. There was a wrinkled knot in between her eyebrows and a deep scowl was imprinted upon her mouth. Noticing the silence in the room she peeked one of her eyes open to glance at her sister. A fond smile took away her scowl and cleared the knot from between her brows. 

“You’ve ruined my drawing.” 

Rebekah tilted her head back and just started to laugh uproariously.

“Ruined your drawing? Hun, you already had the entire thing mapped out and memorized how you want all the shading to look. You already know it all. You’re a queen!” 

Allison just glanced at her sideways while Rebekah grinned and winked. 

Both girls broke down into giggles. Rebekah fell off of her chair which caused Allison to laugh harder. 

“So, what are we going to do tonight? We have a hotel room to ourselves and no one to bring us down. We gonna party like it’s 999?” Rebekah tilted her head up to look at her sister with a crooked smile. 

“I don’t want to do much. Maybe a movie? A ride on the carousel and some Chinese?”

“In that order?” 

Allison nodded. “Exactly that order.” 

Rebekah shrugged her shoulders. “As the lady commands!”

She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on a pair of dark green boot socks and pulled on a pair of black biker boots. 

“Ride or walk?” 

“Walk. It’s not far.” 

The girls left the room Rebekah turning around to lock the room while Allison waited for her a few feet away. 

“Alright, let’s get going yeah?” Rebekah asked as she laced her arm through her sisters and began to skip towards the boardwalk. 

As they walked along the road a dirt bike with a man on it came roaring down the street. The bike hit a patch of sand on the side of the road and kicked it up into the girls’ faces as they got closer to the boardwalk. 

“Hey, you stupid dick!” Rebekah yelled out picking up a rock and tossing it half-heartedly in the boy’s direction. 

They lost sight of him quickly as the neon glow of the boardwalk came into view.   
The boardwalk was as it was every night. Loud, thumping music filled the air from the outside concert, everywhere you looked sweaty, writhing bodies danced as the night air grew denser and denser. The stench of the sickly, salty ocean air permeated the coastline. 

Four boys walked, taking up the majority of the boardwalk’s path, and the crowd parted in front of them, none touching them or making eye contact with any of them.   
In their wake a timid woman walked in gauzy clothes as a boy tried to imitate the elders’ struts. 

The boys walked to one of the guardrails of the boardwalk bordering a staircase leading down to the beach below. 

The little boy bounced along looking around with excitement on his face whilst the girl looked nervous and uncomfortable. 

“Star.” The girl snapped around to look at the platinum blond boy. “You get to watch Laddie tonight. We have something important to deal with.” 

The boy groaned. “Do I really have to go with Star, David? I want to hang out with you guys! We haven’t done anything in so long!” 

David looked down at Laddie and smirked at him. He reached over and ruffled Laddie’s hair. “’Fraid so kiddo.”

“Ugh!” Laddie reached up and tried to smooth his unruly blond hair back down. 

“Well? Go on now kiddies!” Paul yelled as he hung off of Marko. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” 

“That doesn’t cut out much.” 

“Shut it Marko!”

The two boys started to punch each other in their sides whooping as they did. They were moving around rambunctious that they bumped into the silent Dwayne. Dwayne swiftly turned toward the two and wrapped both of them up into a headlock. 

“Aaah! Run little dude! Escape while you can!” Paul choked out cackling as he and Marko twisted trying to get out of the Dwayne’s arms. 

Star moved closer to Laddie, placing her hands on his shoulders before gently moving Laddie towards the festive lights of the boardwalk. 

“Stay safe Laddie.” This was the first time that Dwayne had spoken that night. 

Laddie glanced back at Dwayne over his shoulder and grinned brightly. 

“I’ll be safe! I always am anyways.” 

David gave the boy a slight smile before cutting his eyes towards the bright lights. 

Laddie nodded before whooping and running off towards the center of the boardwalk. Star raised her skirt before rushing off after the enthusiastic boy. 

The remaining group instantly turned serious stopping their rough housing in favor of scanning the crowd. 

“Do you think that they’re here?” 

Marko, chewing on his thumb nail, was the first boy to speak up and break the silence that pervaded the group. 

“They’re here.” 

Dwayne spoke with complete surety in his voice. 

“How are you so sure?” 

 

Paul questioned looking over at the older boys with a furrowed brow. 

Marko smirked a little at Paul. 

“Alright, listen up little bro. Do you remember how our new sisters’ smelt?” 

Paul nodded. “Of course I can! I just can’t scent them now. That’s the problem.” 

“No, you just can’t smell them.”

Paul sent a nasty sneer over at Marko, Marko just smiled at him. 

“What you need to do is close your eyes and breathe. And I don’t mean any pussy-footing pansy breathing. You need to let your nose work overtime. Sift through all of the unwashed masses and that shitty food and just focus on the scents of our sisters. You just sort through scents until they’re sensitized again. Like when you were first turned and every sense was overwhelming.”

Paul’s mouth was twisted into a pout but he did as Marko told him to do. His nose twisted up as he smelt the sweat of the thronging mass of dancers by the concert, he smelt the sweetness of the cotton candy machines, and he could smell the acrid scent of the fryers of the carnival food. 

But underneath that were two specific scents that perked him up entirely. He could smell cheap shampoo underneath the smell of leather. There was also that scent that made him think of home. 

Excited he hopped around exclaiming loudly, “I found them! They’re here!” 

All of the guys were staring at Paul in amusement and as such they didn’t see the two girls that they were searching for walk right in front of them along the boardwalk. 

“There it is! I told you I saw a rental place!” Allison had her arm wrapped around her sister’s elbow and was leaning her head against her shoulder. 

“We look like dikes.” Rebekah replied smirking. 

“Do we want Aliens, Trick or Treat, or the latest Friday the 13th?” 

Allison shifted and gnawed on her bottom lip. “Why don’t we just get the first one we find?”

“Agreed.” 

Both girls looked at the other and nodded their heads in unison. 

Allison ran ahead and grabbed the door for Max’s Video Rental and threw it open. She skipped inside quickly while Rebekah followed at a slower pace but with no less enthusiasm. 

There was a man with thick glasses and bad fashion sense behind the counter that glanced up quickly and stared at the girls as they made their way around the racks of the brightly lit store. 

He watched the girls as they practically danced among the movies, picking up a movie, reading the back, and joking among each other. He watched intently, taking in every aspect of the young women, all the little synchronicities of their movements, how they kept each other in view and at a certain angle. 

_Pack._

His decision was made in a split second. There was no real reason to think about what he was going to do or the consequences of his actions. They were his; as much as that wild group of thugs were his. 

He started to move around the counter to get closer to the girls when the bell above his shop’s door cheerfully ran out. 

A mousy looking woman walked in leading a weeping boy. She wore a long pink flowered dress with a light pink cardigan. She had on a pair of very thick eyeglasses. 

“Excuse me? This little boy has lost his mother.” 

The man pretended to be listening to the woman speak about the remarkably stupid situation that she had thrown herself into the middle of all while keeping an eye on the girls who were walking closer to the counter. 

The shorter brunette gave the taller one a five before kneeling down by the crying child. 

The tall brunette went over to the man and handed him the money. 

“Oh? Ready to check out? I’ll be right back ma’am.” 

He moved behind the counter quickly ringing up a discounted price for the video rental. “That will be two dollars out of five.”

He listened to the girl by the boy. 

“What’s your name sweetie?” 

“Terry.” The boy hiccupped and sniffled. The man stifled the urge to turn up his nose. 

“What does your momma look like?” 

“She tall and has brown hair. She’s pretty and nice and I want my mommy!”

“Alright. You stay here; I’ll find your momma for you.”

“And three dollars is your change. The film is due back in two days. Enjoy.”

The tall girl took the change without saying a word and quickly walked by the crying boy and out the door. 

“Have a good night.” The shorter girl spoke over her shoulder before following the tall one swiftly. 

“Well, that was a little rude.” The woman spoke up and the man had the urge to snap her and the whining brat’s necks. 

“But I guess teenagers will be teenagers. Lord knows what I was like at that age.” She smiled over at the man behind the counter. 

“I thought maybe his parents might be in here? Do you remember seeing him with anyone?” 

A woman rushed in, eyes panicked and breathing accelerated, “Terry! Oh, thank God!” 

She kneeled down to the young boy’s level before bringing him into a tight embrace. “I was so worried.”

She looked over at the man before smiling tightly. 

“Thank you for sending that girl to find me.” 

As she and the boy turned to leave four biker boys walked in. The mother carefully guided her son around the boys before leaving quickly, dragging the little boy by her tight hold on his wrist. 

The boys looked around, Paul not so subtly sniffing at the air around him as he and Marko moved closer to the counter and the shop girl that had just come out of the back. 

“Hey, have you seen two brunettes around here in the last ten minutes?”

The question was asked quickly and with little tact, ignoring the fact that the girl had started making puppy-dog eyes at the boy who had spoken. Almost instantly the look disappeared and an expression of angered disdain tainted the previously pretty girls face. 

“No I most definitely have not. Maybe you should keep your girls on leashes if you lose them?” 

Dwayne turned to look sharply at the girl behind the counter. He began to stalk over to her radiating anger and death. 

“Oh did they have brown hair?” The woman in pink interjected before Dwayne could move farther than a few feet. 

“Oh yeah, actually. See they’re our sisters. We just kinda lost them in the crowd.” Marko took up the mantle of talking for the group. 

David just watched the scene playing out in front of him. His cold ice blue eyes betrayed none of his feelings except for a fleeting glimmer of satisfaction. 

“Oh, yes. They were just in here not five minutes ago. They rented a movie, I suppose for you all to watch later tonight, and then left. They aren’t very social girls are they? But the smaller one did find that little boy’s mother. How are you all related? You really don’t look alike.” 

The glare that was foisted on the woman by David could have frozen blood in the veins of the most stalwart of men. 

“I thought I told you not to come in here anymore.” The man growled out at the boys in his store. 

This removed David’s stare from the woman and in turn moved it to the man. A cold calculated smile graced his thin lips before he and all of the boys hopped out of the store. 

The woman graces them with a kind smile as they leave never knowing how close she came to becoming a face on the missing posters. 

“Wild kids.”

“Oh, they’re just young. We were that age once. Only they dress better. I’m Lucy by the way.” 

“Max.” The man replied shortly with a tight smile. 

“I don’t suppose you would happen to know anyplace that is hiring?” Lucy asked, eyes shining with hope and just a hint of attraction. 

“There’s a restaurant that’s hiring waitresses and the record shop is looking for a new part-timer for the evening.” Max was pleasant to Lucy but only to the degree of a helpful clerk. 

The expression on Lucy’s face lost some of the vibrancy but remained interested and kind. 

“Are you going to rent a movie tonight, Miss Lucy?” Max asked, looking uninterested in discussion and distracted by his thoughts. 

“Oh! No, no. . maybe later. Thank you for your help.” The stuttering and blushing as Lucy spoke, backing up toward the entrance of the store irritated Max. 

“Have a nice night.” 

Max waited by the counter for a few moments before moving to the backroom. 

“Maria, will you watch the front for a few minutes please?”

“Sure thing, boss!” The beautiful shop girl replied smiling brightly at Max. 

Max walked to the back room, making sure that Maria was doing as he told her to, before unlocking and opening the back door and walking into the dank alleyway behind his store. 

Waiting for him, leaning against the shaded brick wall, was David. The smoke from his cigarette wafted up in the breeze causing Max to wrinkle his nose at the unwanted carcinogenic air flowing into his body. 

“Do you know what those girls are?” 

David’s cold eyes cut over Max. 

“Of course.”

The sneer in his voice caused Max to smile. He stepped closer to David taking the cigarette from between his lips and stubbing it out on the wall by David’s head. He dropped the butt before moving his hand to cup David’s cheek. 

“Now, my dear son, smoking can kill you.” 

His grip tightened, digging his sharp nails into his progeny’s face before releasing it by shoving it into the wall behind him. Now David was looking at the ground while Max took an aggressive stance in front of him. 

“Have you found your new sisters yet?” 

The question was asked in a condescending tone though the fond look that was on Max’s belied his attitude. 

“Not yet. We should find them soon, their scent is fresh. We should have introduced ourselves and become acquainted by the end of night at least.”

Max’s eyebrow was raised in disbelief. 

“Do you truly think that they are just going to go along with you like all of your prey? They are not like the coke whores or Star. A pretty face won’t sway them. As a matter of fact, neither girl spoke a word to me while in my store. But they did find that mother. I don’t think that you will get anywhere with them anytime soon. Maybe you might learn patience in this chase?” 

David’s lips twitched before he settled them into an expressionless line. His eyes however showed off the petulance and arrogance of the twenty year old man he would always be. 

“I’ll get them.”

He stood up from leaning against the brick wall, smiling tightly at Max before exiting the alleyway. He walked right in front of a fifteen year old fashion disaster; a young blond boy who had been running down the boardwalk toward the concert who stopped short tripping over his feet and changing directions to crash into the glass of VideoMax. David glanced over at the boy before dismissing him in the same second. 

The boy sneered at David’s back before running off bobbing through the crowded throng of concert goers till he made it to the side of a young man, around eighteen, who was watching a girl in a long white spaghetti strapped dress dance to the song. 

A little boy is by her, a sad and heart-wrenchingly lonely look upon his face. He tugs gently on her dress a few times, trying to get the dancing girl’s attention before giving up after being completely ignored. He slowly turns away from her and runs off onto the boardwalk towards the brightly lit carousel and the loud games. 

He ran so quickly and was not looking at where he was looking that when he slammed into a body there was no stopping the momentum that caused him to crash into the wooden planks below him. 

“Whoa! Little dude, where’s the fire?” 

A woman’s voice asked him in concern before Laddie felt kind calloused hands reach down to pull him up. He looked up as he took the hands proffered. He began to stare at the girl before him. 

“Little dude? Are you ok? Did ya hit your head? Little dude!” 

The girl began to wave her hand in front of Laddie’s face but the longer he was silent the more frantic she got. Soon she was gently moving his hair from in front of his face and lightly touching the back of his head. 

“No bumps.” She kept muttering. 

_Pack._ It was an instinctive call in his mind. It short circuited all of his thoughts and caused him to stand there deaf, dumb, mute, but definitely not blind. He looked at the woman who was watching him with such concern and the girl standing behind her, anxiously biting at her nails and he saw family. 

The feeling was so intense that all Laddie wanted to do was throw himself into the girls’ arms and get a hug, to just stay there until his brothers came to get them and take them home. 

“I’m ok.” 

The girl stopped her random pats to stare into his eyes. 

“Are you sure? Why are you alone?” 

“I’m sure. I was with Star but I really wanted to go on the carousal and I couldn’t get her attention so I came anyway. But I don’t have any money now.” 

“You just ran off? Did you at least tell her where you were going to be? Isn’t she going to be worried about you? I know that I would be out of my mind if my little brother ran off. . .” 

Laddie grinned at her, pleased with the information that he had just received. 

“Star won’t mind. I do it all the time, sometimes she tells me to leave her alone too. I’ll just meet my brothers at their bikes in an hour or so.”

“Do you wanna go for a ride on the carousal?” 

Laddie looked up at the girl that was still standing. He smiled widely as he wildly nodded his head. 

“Hey, little man, before you go accepting things from strangers at least know their names. I’m Rebekah. This is my little sister Allison. Now we can go on that carousal ride.” 

The small group got in the short line for the ride. Rebekah was in the front of the group, back turned to the people in front of her in line so she could talk to her small section of nuclear people. Allison is in the back of the group; her hand was lightly laying on Laddie’s right shoulder. Every time they moved she would gently guide him forward making sure that no one bumped or hit the boy. 

“This is your little sister? But she’s so much taller than you!” Laddie laughed as he said this turning his head up at both of the girls. 

“I’m two years younger than her. She got the looks; I got the height.” Allison drawled as she looked down at Laddie with a crooked grin. 

“She’s totally lying to you, little man. If she took that black shit off her eyes she would look like a million bucks. I’m the one that would look like a midget that escaped from the circus then.” Rebekah interjected looking over at Allison and giving a shit-eating grin. 

“You’re both beautiful.” Laddie spoke up quietly. 

“Aw! Shucks!” 

“Charmer. How old are you?”

“I’m twelve. How old are you guys?” 

They had reached the front of the line so Rebekah turned around and was buying the three tickets that they would need in order to get on the carousal. 

“Rebekah is nineteen and I’m seventeen. Old huh?” 

“No, no you’re not. I’m twelve! I’m almost as old as you are.” 

“What? What? I heard my name!” Rebekah turned back to them in confusion. 

“Nothing.” Allison rolled her eyes at her sister. 

They all moved forward as the attendant ushered them onto the carousal. 

“Which horse do you want little dude?” 

“The big black one.”

“Alright!” 

Allison got onto the bay horse that was in front of the black stallion. Rebekah helped Laddie get on the horse before she got onto the white mare that was beside his. 

“So what are we imagining?” 

After Rebekah asked this Laddie gave her a cross-eyes stare. 

“What do you mean?” 

“When you’re on a carousal you have to imagine something. You have to be someone else or going somewhere to make these horses fly. It’s the biggest secret about these horses. Imagination. It’s something that we’ve always done, ever since we were little girls running along after our grandfather in Oklahoma.” 

“So what are we?” Allison spoke up looking over her shoulder at Laddie. 

“Horse racers!” 

“Jockeys? Alright. Well, let’s see who will win this race!” Allison turned back around,   
bringing her legs up higher and lifting her bottom off of the seat. 

“Dang it! I always lose this one. My horses are too slow. You gonna beat her little dude?” 

Laddie grinned at her and started to whoop. “Of course I am. Let’s get this race started!” 

Both Laddie and Rebekah moved into faux jockey positions as the carousal started to move. The whooped and hollered and screamed as the horses started their slow rotation around the circular track. 

“No! No! I’m falling behind! Every time! Damn it!” Rebekah plopped down onto the seat of the horse and began to pet the painted mane of her wooden horse. 

“It’s alright Calypso, we’ll get them next time. Next race. We’ll get them.” 

“You freak.” Allison smirked as she looked at Rebekah over her shoulder. 

“Go Laddie! Go! You’re winning! You’re winning! Beat the bitch! Beat her!” Rebekah cheered as she bounced up and down in her seat. Allison’s smirk turned into a glower and then she turned back to face the front. 

The ride slowed down and finally came to an end. Allison hopped off her horse in a tiff, whilst Rebekah practically flew down and pulled Laddie off of his seat. 

“And the winner is,” she drawled out the last word, bringing Laddie up onto her hip, “LADDIE!” 

She jumped off of the carousal and then spun Laddie around in a circle by his arms. Allison jumped off and followed them as they both spun like exuberant children. She smiled happily and they all ran off towards the beach, whooping in exuberance. 

As they ran both girls brushed the arm and hair of a girl that was walking with her boyfriend’s arm around her shoulder heading toward the carousal. 

Allison turned while walking backwards to smile and laugh meanly at the girl. The girl snarled at them and the boys following the couple glared and took a few steps forward. Allison just laughed more as she ran swiftly after her sister and Laddie. 

The group got on the carousal after cutting in line, bypassing the large group of teens that had formed in the queue before they the group had arrived. 

The couple got in one of the stationary carriages, two dun wooden horses were in front of it standing still, the glassy painted eyes stared blankly at the boardwalk. 

The group of surfer boys got onto the collection of different colored horses that surrounded the couple. The entire group was laughing, talking, and joking with each other when a group of four boys wandered into their midst. 

David and his gang had tracked the scent of their new sisters to the carousal but the sweaty bodies of the surfers were covering it all up. As they stalked along the twirling horses one girl caught David’s attention. She looked like a coke whore and was hanging off of a surf nazi like it was going out of style. The girl was a despicable excuse of a human being but she did have something that he was looking for. 

She was covered in his sisters’ scents. It saturated her hair and the right side of her body. David smelt it and he wanted to find out how she got it. 

He walked over to her and gently picked up a section of her hair. The cattle watched him with sparkling eyes, drawn in by both his beauty and his sensuality. He brought it up to his nose and inhaled deeply. 

That’s what they needed. 

The unfiltered scent of his sisters flooded his nose. He ignored the unwashed filthy scent of the girl that the scents clung to and just focused on their scents. One of the scents was fresh like unprocessed wheat grass from the plains after a thunderstorm. It was a musty and sharp but not unpleasant. The other scent was like a forest, old scents mashed upon old scents. There was mint and pine with some rosemary woven in. It was an interesting mix when the ocean tang hit it. 

He got to take one more deep breath before the man who was riding with the girl aggressively grabbed David’s hand and shoved it away from them. David raised both his hands in a pacifying gesture before nodding to the boys to move on. As they passed the seated man tripped Paul causing him to collide with the Dwayne’s back causing him to stumble as well. 

The entire group turned aggressively toward the man but in almost the same instance his gang were off their horses and on the side of the seated man. The boys jumped off of the still moving carousal to follow David as he moved confidently towards the beach. His nose was subtly up and the nostrils flared with every breath. 

He led them onto the beach and followed the scent on a seemingly endless circuitous trail. Looking down there were three trails visible in the damp sand. It caused curiosity to spike within him as he noticed that one of the trails was much smaller than the other two. 

Who was traveling with their sisters?

A wave of possessive jealousy enveloped David as he looked at those small footprints. Who was with them when their own brothers could not? What gave them the right to be with them! Here they were searching relentlessly, when they could do so many other things, they could be having a wonderful night, and instead they were chasing two girls all around a beach. 

David’s frustration with the situation smoldered in his gullet. It was inconceivable that a group of four vampires could not find two girls whose scents they knew. It was a disgusting situation, one that David resented to the core of his being. 

David stopped moving. 

The boys behind him stopped as well. 

“Did you lose the scent?” Paul asked, the cocky grin falling from his face. 

“No but I’m done.” 

“Done?” Marko spoke up, nose crinkled in confusion. 

“I’m not going to participate in this clusterfuck anymore.”

“They’re our sisters! We have to find them!” Paul immediately jumped to the absentees’ defense. 

Dwayne was staring at David, eyes inscrutable. “Then go.” 

The slight flinch under David’s right eye was the only response he gave. He turned on his heel and faded into the dark under the boardwalk. 

Dwayne sneered at David’s back before stalking off to follow the scent trail that was gradually going cold. 

Paul and Marko tried to watch the other two members of their group inconspicuously but failed to do so. The obviousness of their glances would be amusing in any other situation but the one that the group found itself in. 

Paul detached himself from Marko and began to walk away. He waved four fingers over his shoulder as he wandered off towards the shadows where David had disappeared. Marko waved back a single finger salute. Marko wandered after Dwayne chewing anxiously on his right thumb. 

Behind Marko passed Star following a boy with brown hair back onto the boardwalk. She walked slightly behind him with her head down like she was ashamed. The boy paused when he got to the top of the stairs that lead to the boardwalk. Star also stopped. 

“Hey, come here.” He reached out and took ahold of Star’s arm gently guiding her to stand by his side. “No standing behind me alright?” 

He smiled down at her as he nonchalantly placed his arm around her shoulder. Star hesitantly leaned into his side, looking up at him for any sign of dissatisfaction. He just smiled more broadly before squeezing her closer to him. 

“Michael.” 

Star spoke softly but with great affection as she raised her hand to interlace it with the one that was hanging off of her shoulder. 

They both started to walk together, steps in sync and stride the same length, towards the end of the boardwalk where Michael had parked his bike. As they meandered along they stopped to play some of the boardwalk games or to look at the clothing stands that were on the periphery. 

Time passed quickly as they walked around ignoring their surroundings until they finally got to Michael’s bike. Star’s eyebrows rose slightly when looking at the old model motorbike in front of her. Michael was parked next to the last store on the boardwalk, Frog’s comic. 

The store had an open façade with two large doors that could swing close. There were two dank windows and the lighting itself was mediocre and dark. There were two adults collapsed upon the counter, heads resting on crossed arms and the occasional snore escaping their prone forms. Three boys were wondering among the stacks, a blond boy who was removing comics from one section and placing them in another, all while complaining loudly to the two brunets that were following him. 

“Excuse me? Can we bring food in here if it’s in the take out baggy?” 

The boys stopped and turned at the voice. 

Rebekah was hanging in the doorway, one arm wrapped around Laddie, the other holding onto a big plastic bag that had the Pacific Thai logo on it. 

“Hello? Little dude wants to see the Superman comics. I don’t know why, I think Batman is much cooler but he’s adamant.”

“Yeah, you can come in. But no eating it or spilling it anywhere!” One of the brunets growled out. 

“Oh, yeah, because I planned on wasting my nine dollars on food that I wanted to throw around a dark comic book store. Chill Rambo.”

Rebekah sauntered into the store, Laddie and Allison followed in her wake. Laddie looked around with wide eyes leaving Rebekah’s side to touch the comics like they were made of gold. Allison just moved to a corner of the store and leaned against it, her dark eyes darting at all the store’s occupants. 

“How many comics do you have already Laddie?” Rebekah asked as she thumbed through a section of some comics that made her grimace. 

“None.” 

Rebekah stopped her browsing and stared at Laddie. She blinked a few times before shaking her head as if clearing it. She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a crumpled ten dollar bill. 

“Who works here?” 

The boy who growled at them earlier stalked over to Rebekah. She shoved the money into his head and leaned in close to him. 

“Alright, I need you to get as many Superman comics as this money can buy. Start from one and go up alright? All of them superman but one; there needs to be one Batman. Capeesh?”

The blond boy came up and took the money. “I’ve got this.”

The boys all seemed to congregate, the brunets arguing about the comics that the blond was picking out. The blond sneered at the other boys before continuing to search on his own, picking up comics and shoving them into the gruff boy’s arms. 

The brunets then went behind the counter, reached around the dozing adults and grabbed a bag and shoved the multitude of comics into it roughly. 

“Hey! Neo maxie-dweebs! No damaging the merchandise! I’m not paying full price if it’s damaged.” 

Rebekah’s voice startled all of the distracted boys as they turned their heads to look at her. She had her hands on her hips and her legs were shoulder length apart. 

The blond came up to her after snatching the bag from the stoic brunet. 

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m Sam, those two are Edgar and Alan Frog.” The boy glanced down bit his lip before looking back at her shyly handing her the bag full of comics. “We’re not dweebs you know.” He spoke in a whisper. 

Allison left the corner and took the Chinese food from Rebekah. Rebekah smiled at her before focusing on Sam once again. 

“Look dude, do you know what happens in this comic?” She held up a Superman #64. 

The blonde’s face lit up. “Oh yeah! So Superman is-“ 

“Stop. I really don’t care. You know what’s in it by simply looking at the cover and the edition number. You are a dweeb. But no one said that being a dweeb is a bad thing. Now go away.” She chucked him on the chin before waving to her group. 

“Let’s go guys! Have to get Laddie to his bros, see ya Sammy!” 

The group walked out of the open doors and back into the salty tangy sea air. Allison took a deep breath before groaning as she released the breath. “So much better than Chicago!” She moaned aloud. 

“What the hell? What brought that one on?” Rebekah looked over at her sister. 

“It doesn’t smell like shit here. I like it.” 

Laddie, listening in, was very pleased with this new piece of information. It was one more thing to talk about with his brothers when he got back to them. He leaned forward to pick Rebekah’s hand back up. 

“Where are you going Star?” 

The new voice caused Rebekah to pull up short. She shivered as goose bumps rose upon her flesh. She licked her lips nervously before pulling the bottom one into her mouth to chew it vigorously. She fought the urge to grab her family, Laddie included, and run. She wanted to run far away until the sun came up and the monsters that stalked at night.

Laddie let go of Rebekah’s hand and ran happily towards the boys that were on the four idling bikes. Allison lunged forward trying to grab Laddie but her fingers only brushed his shoulder. 

“Dwayne! Dwayne! Guess who I found?” 

Laddie’s loud call cut through the tension filled air like a gunshot in a crowded room. 

The girls froze, muscles tensed and bodies flighty. Rebekah moved slowly till her body was slightly in front of her sister, shielding a portion of her body from the rest of the group. 

“This is Rebekah and Allison. We’ve done so much stuff tonight! They took me on the carousal and then we ran around on the beach. They’ve fed me already so you guys don’t have to worry about it. And they bought me Superman comics! One second I’ll show them to you!” 

Laddie skipped over to Rebekah, grabbed her hand, and began to pull the resisting girl behind him as he wandered back towards the boys on the bikes. Rebekah steadied herself, pushing her shoulders back, raising her chin, and slapping a smirk onto her lips. 

“Whoa, what happened to your face?” Paul asked loudly with no tact. 

“I ran into a fist. You should see the other guy.” An actual smile broke out onto Rebekah’s face as she relaxed into the conversation. 

The boys exchanged knowing smiles; all of them were filled with vindictive smugness. 

“So who’s who?” 

Paul jumped up eagerly. “Hey! Over here we have David, he’s the boss dude, there’s the dark dangerous Dwayne, and the one with fashion sense Marko. I’m the good looking one, Paul.” 

Paul was eagerly talking, rocking onto the balls of his feet, arms waving to encompass the entire group. 

“Cool. Who are you?” Rebekah responded with a droll face before turning to face the small group behind her. 

Star looked at her surprised that she had not only wanted to know who she was but that she had turned her back onto the predators that it was obvious she was uncomfortable with. 

“Wait a second. You’re that dickhead! Fuck it, I don’t care anymore.” Rebekah promptly turned back around, her bun bouncing along at the top of her head. 

“Anyway, as Laddie said I’m Rebe-” 

“Hey fuckers!” 

Rebekah was cut off as a brutal force shoved into her shoulder causing her to drop the bulging bag full of comics onto the boardwalk. She crouched down, beginning to pick up the fallen comics when she noticed a dirty sneaker crinkling the cover of the only Batman comic she had bought. 

“Hey, fucker, move your foot. You’re damaging the merchandise.” She tapped the tanned skin above the sneaker’s edge. 

The lost boys watched the interaction closely, Paul inching closer to the group of surf Nazis that had approached them. 

The man who had talked looked down at Rebekah, smirked, then raised his foot and kicked Rebekah in the shoulder knocking her down hard. She yelped as she hit the ground before turning an incredulous look to the man before her. All of the boys got off of their bikes, aggression flowing like red-hot fire through their veins. Allison moved forward grabbing Laddie and pulling him behind her and the rest of the group. 

Rebekah pushed herself off the ground, baring her teeth in a mockery of a smile at the man who pushed her. She put her hand on his shoulder, rubbing his chest in sensual circles. The man grinned at her before reaching his arm to place it over her shoulder. 

Rebekah grabbed his arm at the elbow and his shirt and swung around, using the momentum from her swing and his weight against him and tossed him easily over the railing of the boardwalk onto the hard packed sand below. 

She turned around, stretching her arms out in front of her and interlacing her fingers to pop the joints before looking at the rest of the Nazis. Loud screams of pain were vibrating in the air from the man below, cries about his leg and blood echoing up to the still groups above. 

“Who’s next?” 

Before the Surf Nazis had a chance to make a move a portly security guard jogged into the fray. He was breathing heavily by the time he came to a stop but this did not stop him from getting exceedingly close to David’s face with a sneer. The Nazis split leaving the Lost Boys and their collected group of humans to deal with the guard.

“I thought I told you not to be on the boardwalk.”

David raised his hands. 

“We were just leaving.” 

The guard turned to leave but paused when he heard a crinkling sound underneath his shoe. He looked down. Under his black sneaker clad foot was an old Batman comic. Rebekah moved closer before she started to lean down to pick the comic up. 

“Hey, sorry but could you move your foot a little? My comics dropped.”

The guard gave Rebekah a once over before a disgusted look washed over his face. He looked over at David’s group then back at Rebekah before twisting the foot that was placed on the comic. A loud tearing sound ripped through the air. He snorted as his portly form leisurely made its way back to the bright lights of the main boardwalk. 

“Fucker.” Rebekah muttered to herself as she picks the ruined comic up. “Well, Laddie, looks like ya get your wish. No Batman for you.” She tosses the comic into the trash bin disappointment plain on her face. 

“Here you go.” She hands the bag with the rest of the comics to Laddie. “At least I wasn’t carrying the food huh?” She asks Allison sighing. 

“So since this hasn’t really been my night, I’m going to go back home now. Come on Ali, let’s go watch that movie we rented. See ya later Laddie. Nice to meet you guys, even though you were kinda useless in the situation. Just saying.” 

Paul jumped forward. “Do you need someone to take you home? I volunteer myself and Marko!” 

“No.” Allison’s husky voice seemed louder in the open air. 

“We’re cool. Thanks.” 

Rebekah stalked off, Allison following a few feet behind her. Laddie watched them go, a heart-wrenching sadness flowing off of him in droves. 

“Laddie go with Star. Star, go visit with the video store owner. He wanted to talk to you.” 

The two addressed persons resignedly made their way to the main boardwalk, sticking close to each other. Michael watched Star obey David’s command without question before swallowing hard and starting his bike. He went the opposite direction, towards the sleepy center of Santa Carla instead of the bustling downtown. 

“At least we met them.” Marko commented as Paul fished the Batman comic out of the trashcan. He tossed it at Marko who caught it easily. 

“Think you can fix that?” 

Marko looked the book over before rolling it up and putting it into an inside pocket of his colorful jacket. 

“Yeah, should be easy for me.” 

“We know their names now.” 

This was the first time that Dwayne had spoken since they had formally met the girls. 

“Yeah! That’s a great plus huh?” Paul interjected eagerly. 

“Does anyone else want something salty to eat? I’m craving something that likes to swim.” 

Three heads turned to look at David in confusion before comprehension slowly dawned in them. 

“Why not? I can always eat the same thing twice in a row.” 

Marko’s cherubic smile turned into devilish laughter as the boys disappeared into the darkened underbelly of the boardwalk. 

Screams of terror blended in with the raucous noise of laughter and carnival music. No one came to investigate or help. 

The doors of the comic shop closed silently as Edgar and Alan moved away from the windows, waiting for the sun to rise.


	3. I Do Not Like This Sam I Am

Disclaimer: I do own anything that was in the movie Lost Boys. I reserve the right to change events to fit with the story I am making. In movie: Theirs. Not in movie: Mine.

Chapter Three: I Do Not Like This Sam I Am

The next night the boys were eager to go out and find the girls again. They congregated in their areas, Paul on the fountain, Marko messing with the comic, Dwayne with an open book on the couch but not reading, and David leisurely moving in the wheelchair.

Star was lackluster, putting on the minimum amount of makeup and slightly tousling her hair. Max had told her things that were as far from alright as possible. She had been given an ultimatum. 

Those girls were going to be his daughters. That meant that she was now expendable. She wasn’t even supposed to have been turned, she knew that. She regretted running away from her family’s Santa Monica suburban home every night. She regrets falling into the Surf Nazis’ group, she regrets exploring the cave that day, and she regrets that she couldn’t resist the temptation to take a damn drink. 

But she had made her bed and now she had to sleep in it, every day for the rest of eternity. 

Star absolutely loathed this life. She hated the complete freedom that she had now, it used to feel suffocating at home with her parents’ rules but now she only feels alone. Devastatingly alone. She hated how the boys acted even though she used to be exactly like them. She hated the camaraderie among the group because they were murderers. Why did they deserve these tight bonds of brotherhood when she was completely by herself? 

She was bitterly jealous, angry, and sad. Even Laddie did not want to be around her anymore. Her emotions felt like a festering wound within her stomach, causing it to ache and burn until all she wanted to do was scream at the unfairness of the world. She wanted to succumb to the poison in her, wanted to go on the beach seduce some idiot then tear his throat out and stop this infernal burning in her stomach. But then there would be nothing for her here. 

She was not a member of their pack no matter how much she tried to be. She acknowledged this thought with a small amount of longing. She had not been chosen to be with their group, she had not been wanted, she was only the unnecessary baggage that Max had been too fond of to get rid of. 

And that had now changed. Max had found his perfect daughters. They would be the beloved sisters of the boys, protected and free, able to do anything and go anywhere. They would never have to worry about pain or hunger, they wouldn’t be unsure of their places in the pack’s life. 

They would have everything that Star had once wanted. 

“Star, enough.” 

Star stopped running the brush through her hair and made her way to the top of the cliff. 

Her fate now rested in the hands of two girls who didn’t even care for her name. They would decide whether or not she would be allowed to continue to live as she had grown accustomed or if she would be killed to satisfy the pack. 

She would make herself indispensable to them. These thoughts swirled through her mind as she clung to the bar that dug into her lower back as she tried to not touch David who was driving in front of her. 

The bikes accelerated, leaping forward over the rocky road to the sand dunes below the cliff faces. Star closed her eyes tightly and clenched her hands tighter until her knuckles turned into bloodless, pale and sweaty. 

As the boys made their way down the beach Marko and Paul veered off course towards the left where Main Street was and away from boardwalk. David and Dwayne both stopped staring at the two who are driving off. 

“See you later!” Paul shouts over his shoulder as both he and Marko drive swiftly towards the smooth glow of the streetlights. 

Dwayne shook his head as he revved his bike before flying off, continuing down towards the bright lights and sounds of the Boardwalk. Laddie hooted as he clung to Dwayne’s leather jacket glancing behind him quickly to send a bright smile towards David. 

David smirked and then followed his brothers. Star once again clung tightly to the metal bar behind her. 

Paul drove swiftly, his motorcycle weaving along the lane in front of Marko, cackling as he popped a wheelie and then grunting as his bike went down hard. Marko screeched behind him as Paul’s bike landed in front of his causing him to have to swerve into the lane of oncoming traffic and swerve swiftly back so that he wouldn’t hit the four door sedan that laid on its horn. 

“You dick!” He yelled at Paul. Paul just looked over his shoulder as he laughed in such a high pitched tone that it was reminiscent of a hyena. 

“What the hell are we doing downtown anyway?” Marko questioned as both bikes stopped at a stop sign in one of the quieter four way stops. A bowling alley was the only business that was open at the stop. “We can’t eat anything here. We did that once, you remember how well that turned out with David? I really don’t want to do that again, I like the skin on my back to remain on my back.” 

“You want to see our sisters again don’t you?” Paul drawled at Marko. 

Marko glanced over at Paul quickly disbelief covering his face. “What do you know?” His tone was antagonistic, body puffed up and tensed. Paul just grinned over at him again, ignoring the frustration that played on his brother’s face. 

“I gotta feeling. We need to be here.” 

“Here? Specifically here? A stop sign in a deserted corner of the Santa Carla downtown area?”

“Yep!” 

Marko scoffed as he turned away from Paul and was slouching over his handlebars to watch the blinking lights of the bowling alley. He straightened up as shouts began to reverberate in the quiet night air. His body tightened even more as two girls burst from the alley running at full speed towards the stop sign that he sat at. 

_Pack._

Besides him Paul revved his bike. 

“Is it just me or do they look like they’re not having a good night?” 

There was no joking tone in Paul’s voice, only an overtone of aggressive concern. 

The girls ran, the shorter one held the hand of the taller one forcing the pace of their flight to be swift. “Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope!” The short one was screaming this at the top of her lungs as she ran full out dragging the girl behind her as she stumbled. 

“Come back here you little bitch!” 

A group of men ran out of the bowling alley and began to chase the girls. 

The shout made the girls flinch and the boys tense tighter. Their hands were clenching the handlebars so tight that their knuckles were white. 

“Hey Rebekah! Allison! Over here!” Paul shouted. 

Rebekah turned, pausing for a mere second, before dragging her sister towards the waiting bikes. When they reached the boys Rebekah tripped over her own feet, colliding with Paul’s bike and rocking it but it didn’t fall because of how rigidly Paul had been braced against the ground. 

“Well,” he began looking over at the pack of men chasing them and steadily getting closer, “you should probably get on.” 

Allison didn’t waste any time, grabbing Marko’s shoulders as a balance and swinging her leg over the bike behind him. Marko revved the engine before taking off. 

Rebekah glanced over her shoulder before growling to herself and jumping onto the bike. 

“Giddy up, wild child!” She shouted into Paul’s ear, yanking on his long hair like it was the reins of a bridle. 

Paul didn’t pause, taking off from zero to sixty which forced Rebekah to yelp and wrap her arms around his waist. 

The shouts from the men promising retribution and pain faded from hearing into echoes that rang in the ears of the girl wrapped around Paul but they did not fade from his hearing. With each shout and slur he memorized the voices; the timber, the tones, the accents, the sound of the phlegm in the throat of one of their followers. He memorizes and promises himself that he will see them safe, his sisters, before he comes back to find a scent, something more tangible than just voices, and he will hunt them down. 

But first things first, he has to contend with his new little sister that was currently beginning to scream into his right ear. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Paul called back towards the girl behind him. 

“Go faster! Come on! We’re on a bike start driving like it!” 

Rebekah was bracing her arms around Paul’s shoulder as she stood slightly, legs squeezing into Paul’s side so tightly the air was forced out of his lungs. 

Paul however, didn’t care. He grinned at his sister and pushed the throttle. 

The scream of pure delight was worth the ringing in his ears. 

They quickly caught up to Marko and Allison who were driving at a more reasonable pace until Paul came even with them. Marko glared over at Paul as he laughed and pulled forward before moving in front of Marko for the second time that night. 

The curses that filled the night air caused both Paul and Rebekah to scream joyfully. 

However, both Paul and Rebekah were cut short by Allison yelling out. 

“You can’t let her win! She always wins! You have to beat her!” 

Rebekah stared at her sister in incredulity. “We doing this now?” 

Marko hadn’t said a word as he gradually increased the speed on his bike until he was many feet in front of Paul’s bike. 

“What! No, no, no! Go Speedy Gonzales, be the fastest mouse in all of Mexico! You can do it! All you have to do is go faster. Beat ‘em!” 

It was in this fashion that the race began. 

The late night drivers traveling along Main Street cursed as they were forced to swerve or brake as Paul and Marko wove their way through the last real bit of traffic that Santa Carla had in the city. They were accompanied by the raucous screams and shouts of both encouragement and taunts that echoed into the vibrant night. 

The sharp deceleration of Paul’s bike caused Rebekah to slam into his back and she began to lift off of the bike and go over his head. Paul reached up and nonchalantly grasped the side of her leather jacket pulling it and Rebekah back down. 

“Whoa.” 

Paul looked at her over his shoulder, taking in the shell shocked expression that graced Rebekah’s face. 

“You doing alright there, little sister?” 

“Why did you stop like that? Ohhh, I think I have whiplash.” 

Rebekah slowly rested her forehead on Paul’s back taking deep breaths as she tried to calm down the shaking that pervaded her limbs. 

“Nice reflexes.” 

“Beck! Are you alright?” 

A hand raised in acknowledgement, flapping weakly at the wrist. “Yeah, yeah, I’m cool. It could be worse. I could actually have feeling in my neck. I could have an unbitten tongue. I could have unwatering eyes. But I’m certain it could be worse.” 

Allison got off Marko’s bike and made her way over to Rebekah helping her off as well. 

“Sorry sis.” Paul’s response was unrepentant. 

“What was that?” Marko interjected moving his bike even with Paul’s facing the rushing ocean. On the left of them were two other bikes, the closest having a bar from the carousal jerry rigged onto it. They knocked the kickstands down and got off of their bikes as well. 

“A regular Tuesday night.” 

Rebekah looked over in grinning surprise as Allison answered. “It does happen to us a lot doesn’t it?” 

“Really?” Paul looked quizzically, “This is a regular occurrence for you two?” 

“Well yeah, except normally we don’t have anybody willing to give us a ride at a conveniently located stop sign. Normally, we just run until we can’t anymore and then we fight. Cause, you know, you can’t be a Red. Gotta fight. Keep fighting till your dead.” 

“Did you hit your head again?” 

“I didn’t hit my head. That guy with the bad goatee hit me. Get it straight. I’ve actually not been as clumsy as I normally am this trip.” 

“You got hit on the head! Where?” Marko again interjected into the conversation. 

Rebekah pulled out her ponytail, tilted her head down, and began to part her hair around the crown of her head. 

“Where is it? Hmmm? Where are you? OH! Oh! That hurt!” Her finger was on a single spot as she moved the hair away from the spot indicated by her finger. 

“TA-DA!” 

Allison, Paul, and Marko all leaned over her and looked at the spot. The skin was flushed and swollen, a darker spot in the center of the area looked angry and painful. The skin was scraped off in some places leaving spots of already clotting blood in its wake. 

“You’re going to be a kaleidoscope.” 

“What were you hit with?” 

“Did you happen to catch a name?” 

“I think this is what alien abductees feel like!” Rebekah giggled. 

Allison, Paul, and Marko took three steps back in almost perfect synchronization. 

“OH! Do that again! Have you been practicing behind my back? Ali, when did you meet up to practice your amazing awesome stepping skills? Why am I not involved in this?” 

“Shut up, Beck.” 

“Okay, okay. And to your two questions, I don’t know what I was hit with. I want to say that it was a bowling ball but I don’t really think I would be as cognizant if it had been. I mean, it is on the back of my head you know. I don’t have eyes back there. As to a name, if you are planning to go after the horrible perpetrator of this dastardly crime against a completely innocent woman, it is completely generic and common: John. There are too many Johns in this world. Every three boys you meet it’s like ‘Hi, I’m John.’ And I’m like ‘Ugh.’” 

“Where are we?” 

Rebekah stopped talking and looked around. “Good question.” 

They were all in a secluded area. The lights and sounds from the boardwalk were visible but muted. Sand dunes encompassed the entire area. The dunes were sparsely populated by small bonfires in which some figures could be seen dancing around. The ocean’s tide formed a peaceful lull, echoing gently in an endless roar. 

A piercing scream broke through the almost peaceful haze. 

Rebekah jumped startled as she unconsciously moved in front of Allison. Allison moved closer to her sister and placed a hand on her shoulder. Paul and Marko observed their reactions before moving closer to each other sandwiching the girls between the both of them. 

“That was a person right?” 

Rebekah spoke in a hushed whisper. Her slightly tanned face losing all of the color that had been just moments ago flushed with mirth. 

“The Surf Nazis like to scare the groups that come out here sometimes. They think it’s like a fun game or something.” 

Paul was smiling as he answered Rebekah but his eyes were hard and there was a tension in the corners that had not been there moments ago. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.” 

Marko reassured. 

The girls were beginning to relax, shoulders untightening, spines returning to a more curved position, breath decelerating, when another scream echoed over the dunes. Instantly, all traces of calm left them. 

"Are you sure that this is a joke? That sounds like someone is getting hurt!" 

“Should we check it out?” 

“Well, I know that you sure as hell aren’t!” 

“I’ll check.” 

The burgeoning argument between the sisters was subverted by Marko’s statement. 

“You will?” 

Allison looked over at him with relieved hope in her eyes and voice. 

“Sure, be back in a second.” Marko grinned over at Paul as he glared at him. 

“Make it fast.” Paul growled out as he gently maneuvered the girls to his other side. They were now in between Paul and his bikes. 

“You know we can’t run away if the bike blocks our way.” 

Marko heard as he made his way down the sand dune, he climbed another one and disappearing from the sight of those in the parking lot took off from the ground and swiftly flew over the dunes. He kept low, moving in the valleys between the dunes, not because he wasn’t confident in his abilities, but just to ensure that there was no chance that the girls would see any hint of the supernatural before they had been properly inducted into the family. 

He heard a low groan and gurgle to his left and veering toward the sound landed silently. He began to walk towards the sound the light from a small bonfire tinkling in his eyes. He watched unconcerned as a body came flying towards him. The woman collided with his chest. 

She gasped loudly before looking up at his face. 

“Oh God! We have to run! There are monsters!” Her face was covered in eyeliner and mascara that had run down with her tears. Snot was making a steady trail of mucus down over her mouth and chin. Her lips and face were white except for two spots of flushed red on the apples of her cheeks. An acrid sweat covered her body causing Marko to wrinkle his nose in distaste. 

“You need to be quiet.” 

The voice that erupted from Marko’s chest was cold. There was no warmth in his tone, or his eyes, no hint of the Cheshire grin that he always wore on his mouth. 

“Wh-What?” The woman stuttered. 

“You’re scaring my sisters. You need to be quiet.” 

“I need help!” Her voice began to rise. “I don’t think you understa-” 

She was cut off mid word as Marko reached up and grabbed her chin. She was lifted off of the ground and with a quick jerk to the right the grinding crack of broken bone permeated the air. Marko held her suspended, looking at his work with a macabre type of glee before throwing the body onto the ground with a negligent hand. 

“Finally. Silence.” 

“That’s not how you usually do it.” 

David’s cold teasing voice interrupted Marko’s enjoyment of his recently acquired silence. 

“Well, you normally don’t make as much noise.” 

“You normally don’t care.” Dwayne spoke curiously coming up behind David whilst wiping his face with a small white cloth that was steadily becoming red stained. 

“Well, normally I do not have my very human sisters with me. It would figure that the one night that we get them immediately is the day that my brothers want to play with the humans more than ever.” 

“They’re with you?” Dwayne began to walk forward, excitement shining in his dark eyes. 

“How did you find them?” David moved until he was abreast with Dwayne, kicking sand up into the air with reckless abandon. 

“Let’s just say that we were in the right place at exactly the right time. We’re going to have to go back before the night is through though. There’s a bone that we need to pick.” 

David’s eyebrow rose in askance. 

“Some fuckers decided that our sisters would be some prime meat. They disagreed. Now Rebekah is even more bruised than she already is. It’s a fucking miracle that her brain is still working, what with all those hard blows.” 

“She got hit again?” Aggression coated Dwayne’s voice. 

“Yeah, right on the back of her head. It’s swollen like a baseball with blood and everything. Now can I go back or do I have to stand here talking all night?” 

“Watch it little brother. Let’s go.” 

With that the brothers left the carnage to be swept away by the dunes or to be found in the morning. There was no care in their demeanor, only a restless tension. Marko led the way back to where he had left Paul and the girls, flying low to the ground before landing just out of sight. 

“By the bikes?” David questioned. 

A swift nod was his response as he swiftly topped the dune in front of them and got his first sight of his new sisters that night. The girls were still between Paul and the bikes, Allison had taken a seat on Marko’s bike while Rebekah remained standing looking out over the sea of sand. Paul was watching the road that led into the parking lot closely, eyes narrowed and shoulders stiff. When Rebekah’s eyes alighted onto David and the following boys a measure of the tension held in her shoulders relaxed. She waved enthusiastically at them before moving away from the bike and standing on the other side of Paul, the more exposed side. Allison got up and moved closer to her sister’s side. 

“Hey David and Dwayne right? What are you guys doing here? Did you find that girl Marko? Is she okay?” Rebekah’s mouth ran a mile a minute with questions. 

Marko grinned at her. 

“Yes, you got the dipshits’ names right. They were visiting a party here and I ran into them. I did find the girl. It was not a scream of pain or fear. She and her boyfriend were -” 

“La la la la! I get the picture. Forget I asked. Sorry for making you go out there and check up on her. Dear God, that must have been fucking awkward.” 

Rebekah’s face was flushed as a large grin broke out on her face and all traces of tension disappeared from her bearing. She reached up and scratched at the nape of her neck. 

“Your hair’s back up? You should leave it down. It looks nice.” 

Allison’s eyebrow rose. 

“Well, aren’t you a fashionista?” 

Paul’s hyena laugh barked out breaking any silence that had fallen. 

“He is isn’t he?” 

Marko scowled at them as they laughed. Rebekah smiled at her sister, a soft fondness gentling her eyes. 

Out on the road a loud gang of bikes could be heard in the distance. 

“So, where is the Sea  & Sand Inn from here? I think that I’m a bit tuckered out from the adventures of this Tuesday night.” 

“Well, it’s a couple good miles away from here. It’s on the other side of the boardwalk and then a mile inward. It would be simpler if you just hopped back on the bike and Marko and I can take you back.” 

“You don’t mind?” Allison questioned. 

“Nah,” Marko began, “We like you. It wouldn’t bother us to take you back to your abode at all. But don’t you think that you guys should eat first? I can hear your stomachs growling from over here.” 

“You must have some impressive hearing then. I don’t even hear my stomach and I’m attached to it.” Rebekah teased. 

“Well.” Marko shrugged. 

“Found you bitch.” 

The strident voice interrupted the comfortable conversation. Rebekah began to turn around when a hard glass bottle hit the back of her head where she had already been struck. It shattered and glass rained down onto the black asphalt below her. 

Allison rushed forward grabbing her beneath her armpits as her eyes rolled back into her skull and her knees failed to support her weight. Grunting with the sudden exertion she dragged her sister away from the sparkling glass and then slowly placed her down. 

She looked up trying to see who had attacked her sister but only saw a black leather wall in front of her. The boys had moved to form a shield in front of both of the girls. 

“Who are you?” 

The cold voice caused chills to race down Allison’s spine. A cold sweat began to form on her brow as her insides quivered in fear. That was the voice of a murderer. There was no emotion except pure fury. It frightened the life out of Allison and through the gaps in her living wall she could see the group of boys begin to rethink the situation that they had thrust themselves into. 

“How’s Rebekah, Allison?” Paul looked over his shoulder at her. 

It must have been a trick of the light, or lack thereof, because Allison could swear that his eyes were a golden red. 

“She’s bleeding. Her breathing is good and all but she’s knocked out cold.” 

“Here.” A pair of keys landed on the asphalt by her knees. “Take my bike. Marko will take Rebekah in front of him. Go to our place. He knows how to patch people up.” 

Allison looked at David in surprise. She hadn’t expected the tall blonde to offer up his bike for her or to open up his home. 

“Alright.” She picked up the key and got back onto her feet. Before she could blink Marko was beside her picking up Rebekah gently and maneuvering her onto the front of the bike. He ensured that she would not fall before turning the ignition, revving, and moving the kickstand back up.  
Allison held the keys up in askance and Marko pointed to the bike at the end of the row. She quickly got on and started the engine. She crab walked out of the parking spot until she was even with Marko. 

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going? You bitches owe us some things and you’re not leaving until you deliver!” 

Paul’s laughter again broke out into the night. Instead of the friendly mirthfulness that he had shared with Rebekah earlier it was sinister and dark. 

“You don’t get to ask about anything.” 

The hairs on the back of Allison’s neck were standing at full attention. She glanced at Marko before nodding towards the lot’s exit. Marko nodded back at her before zooming off towards the dark road. Allison swiftly followed behind him. 

“HEY!” 

The yell reverberated behind her but she did not look behind as she raced behind Marko, worry tight in her heart and fear locked into her mind. 

One of the members of the group attempted to turn his bike around and follow after them but he was pulled off of his bike and thrown at the back of his compatriots. 

“What the fuck?” 

The question was slurred out in pain and confusion. Dwayne stood by the now vacant bike, his leather boot clad foot resting on the seat of the bike. 

“How did you get there so fast?” 

Dwayne slowly grinned, eyes turning a menacing shade of yellow as his face morphed. Deep planes and grooves formed where there had previously been nothing but smooth young skin. He pushed down with his leg and the bike began to bow where his foot rested. A simple kick had it skidding across the empty lot, sparks flying from the scrape of metal on asphalt. 

The entire gang of boys, for that was what they truly were; boys under the age of seventeen clumped together, some grabbing each other and others trying to get to the edge farthest from the men that were in front of them. 

“Why were you chasing them?” 

_David’s cold voice cut through the hearts of the boys._

“We. . . we thought it would be fun. You know, they were playing a game at the alley and we thought it would be fun to play around with them. We didn’t mean anything by it. Honestly man, we were just messing around!” 

“You didn’t mean anything by it? Then why is my sister unconscious and bleeding. Her fucking blood is on the ground right here! She didn’t provoke you! You hit her from the back you little fucking coward!” 

The more Paul spoke the louder he became and the more a growl formed behind each of his words. 

“She’s still breathing isn’t she?” A different boy spoke up, hoping to defuse the situation. 

The next instance his screams echoed over the sand dunes as David ground his face into the shattered glass that was spread across the asphalt. Fear became a visible entity as the group of boys began to panic. 

“You’re not getting out of this alive you know.” 

He spoke conversationally, as if he was talking about the score of the recent Yankees ballgame.  
The group scattered panicking. No one tried to help their friend under David’s boot, they tried to escape. None did. 

Dwayne tore through the soft bodies of all that he caught. His gleeful face gave him the appearance of a demon in the soft moonlight and singular streetlamp. Blood splattered every surface as he incapacitated and then took his time shaving skin, muscle, and organs from the screaming bodies beneath him. 

Paul tore through the throats of those he caught, gorging himself on the blood and the violence of the kill. Each body was held and swayed in a macabre dance as his partners chocked on the blood gurgling within their throats. 

David did not move through the entirety of the massacre. His boot never left the face of the boy beneath him, sometimes it was almost gentle, just a constant pressure on his face, other times it was a grinding pain pushing more so that the glass would cut other parts of his body. 

Eventually all was silent. The only noise was the shuddering gasps from the boy beneath David’s boot. 

“Do you want me to take care of that?” Paul offered, hair in disarray and a wicked grin painting his ruby lips. 

“No.” 

Dwayne glanced over at David, arms soaked in the blood of the not so innocent with innocuous bits stuck under his nails. 

“Marko hasn’t eaten tonight.” 

The boy heard this and began to cry, the shock of what he had been witness to transforming into the knowledge of what was going to happen to him. He watched in fascinated horror as the bodies of his friends, boys that he had grown up with, were picked up with disrespect and tossed like refuse into a singular pile. A brilliant flash appeared before the remains of his friends were unceremoniously set alight. 

He squealed as he was lifted by the back of his shirt. He watched as the ground became smaller and smaller as his feet left the ground and any hope that remained in his body plummeted to the ground below. He closed his eyes as the roar of bikes erupted from the ground and he felt the wind begin to rush by his bloody face. 

If he fell asleep he would wake up tomorrow by his mom banging on his door in his own bed. It would all be back to normal if he fell asleep. Nothing was wrong. 

All he had to do was close his eyes. 


	4. Rose Tint My World

Disclaimer: I do not own the Lost Boys. However, I reserve the right to change events to suit with how my story will progress. In the movie: theirs. Not in movie: mine.  
  
Chapter Four: Rose Tint My World  
  
Santa Carla was at one point in time the most desirable resort location in the United States. From the late eighteen hundreds to the early nineteen hundreds thousands of people wandered through the town, seeking a refuge from the stresses of common life.  
  
The resorts would take tourists to the nearby mountains for peaceful hikes, boat rides, and dips in heated water swimming pools.  
  
However, the most impressive resort, one built on the face of Hudson’s Bluff, the Atlantis Hotel & Resort, _the _most luxurious resort in the tri-county region fell straight through the Earth in the 1906 earthquake that decimated California.__  
  
After this the tourists stopped coming in the massive droves that they had been. The other resorts either closed their doors or moved to other areas on the California Coast. Hotel Twilight, as the locals began to fondly call the remnants of the once opulent building rose over the horizon, sharp peaks peering over the edge of the world, was forbidden to all citizens of Santa Carla.  
  
The city degraded, changing to a small town that had to create gimmicks to seduce the crowds of people that were once thronging on the beach. Thus, the boardwalk was created, a more open public environment, filled with shops and locals desperate for the revived tourism.  
  
It was successful to a degree.  
  
Instead of families coming for a wonderful weekend getaway, there were groups hoping to use the desperation of those who lived there for their own nefarious needs. It became a home for gangs, drug addicts, the lost, the hopeless, and the desperate. With this influx of this new vulnerable population, this new prey, it makes sense that predators would move in with them.  
  
People began to go missing. One by one by one. Just one or two a week for a while, until it became a nightly occurrence. It began with the runaways. Then those who were members of gangs, the cheats, pickpockets, murderers, and monsters disappeared only to be found sometimes in horrific conditions with their bodies torn apart.  
  
A manhunt ensued; the livelihood of the very city was at stake. The cops combed the streets, talking to the tourists, shaking down people who were of a questionable occupation. Multiple arrests were made, hundreds of people were taking to the station, questioned, and released.  
  
Then the killings stopped. It stayed quiet for decades, enough time passed that people forgot that there had even been killings in the town itself.  
  
Then they started again in 1985. This time however, there were no bodies ever found. Only the fluttering stark white sheets pinned onto a board at the beginning of the Boardwalk to show evidence that there were people here.  
  
In this environment, the predator that can walk through the crowds is the most powerful creature in the world.  
  
All predators run with packs though.  
  
When night fell; the largest pack of Santa Carla stirred. Raucous laughter filled the caverns of the old hotel as they ran from the depths into the main lobby. Dwayne was first, eagerly looking around the room.  
  
His face fell as the only other people that he saw was Star and Laddie sprawled out on their opulent bed. He stalked over to the bed and roughly pushed aside the hanging curtains. He jerked Star up into a sitting position and shook her roughly.  
  
Star’s hands flew to the hand on her shoulder, claws embedding into Dwayne’s wrist. The snarl he released made her freeze.  
  
“Where are they?”  
  
Her eyes darted around the room, seeking out the dark corners as if the girls were hiding away. Another harsh jerk made her snap her eyes back up to Dwayne.  
  
“I don’t know. They were here before I fell asleep. I…I don’t know.”  
  
“Hey, there’s a note!”  
  
Paul’s voice smoothly interjected. Dwayne released Star roughly before moving to Paul by the fountain. Marko raised an eyebrow at him before shrugging. David sat in his wheelchair, legs crossed.  
  
“Hey, thanks for taking care of Rebekah last night. Sorry to inconvenience you. We’ll see you if we see you. Thanks, Allison and Rebekah. What the hell?”  
  
The more he read the more irritation was audible in Paul’s voice.  
  
“It wasn’t an inconvenience. And who writes like this anymore?”  
  
“Obviously they do.”  
  
“Shut up Paul.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Dwayne snatched the letter from Paul’s hand. He reread it multiple times before groaning and putting the letter down.  
  
“They were here. We had them here and now they’re gone.”  
  
“They weren’t dogs. You couldn’t just tell them to stay and expect them to obey.”  
  
“Star, don’t you start with me. Just keep your mouth shut and your head down.”  
  
“Dwayne.”  
  
David’s voice caused everyone to freeze.  
  
“Relax.”  
  
Dwayne growled before he stalked over to the couch and collapsed upon it. Laddie, who had been silent this entire time, wandered over to him and sat down by him, resting his head on Dwayne’s shoulder.  
  
“Where would they go?”  
  
Laddie questioned, voice whispering with downcast eyes.  
  
“Wherever they’ve been staying. Chill, little bro, it’s not like we won’t see them again. They’ve been on the boardwalk for a couple of days. It should be easy enough to find them again. After all, they are staying at the Sand  & Sea Inn.”  
  
Paul was filled with optimism at the knowledge. He was confident that it would be easy enough to find their sisters again.  
  
“And, with that head wound they can’t travel very far. How bad was it anyway?”  
  
“Bad enough. It was bleeding like a motherfucker. She woke up on the way over I kept her talking to me the entire time. It turned to shit once we got off the bikes though. She touched her head and just started screaming at the blood. Took Allison and me forever to calm her down enough to actually let me look at it. She’s cut about two inches so I stitched it up and gave her some pain meds. Basically, she’s going to be in a shit mood for a while.”  
  
Marko bit at his thumb with more vehemence angrily pacing along the fountain.  
  
“Well, then, do you think we should visit them first or eat?” David’s interjection was unexpected and cut through the tension that was surrounding the group.  
  
“Let’s eat. My mood gets better when I’m full.” Dwayne spoke stalking up the edge of the stairs. “Laddie, come on, you can ride behind me.”  
  
Laddie eagerly hopped up, fears over his sisters relieved, and happiness etching back into his cherubic face. He cheerfully rushed up the steps with Dwayne close behind, hand outreached to catch him if he happened to fall.  
  
Paul meandered slowly afterwards with Marko stalking soon after.  
  
“Star?”  
  
David’s cool voice interjected towards the silent brunette.  
  
“Yes David?”  
  
She responded reluctantly.  
  
“I know this wasn’t your fault, so I won’t blame you for them being missing. But you need to be careful, Star. This is your endgame. You need to play it better. You know as well as I what will happen if you fail.”  
  
“I know David. I’m trying.”  
  
“Try harder.”  
  
David’s voice was harsh but his eyes were softer, a mixture of affection and pity.  
  
Star had been here for years, spending every night out at the boardwalk with the boys and Laddie when he wandered into the pack. There had been many good times, the boys were exuberant and love the life that they had been gifted. There was never a night that the boys didn’t want to celebrate life.  
  
But there had been bad times as well. These seemed to come more and more for Star. The boys hadn’t changed, Laddie hadn’t changed. She had. And these changes began to chafe at her relationships with the rest of the pack.  
  
She began to hate this life.  
  
However, she didn’t want that life to end, no matter how unhappy she was with it at the moment. It would get better. Star believed this with every iota of her being. This would not be the end. This was another chapter and a new one would begin soon.  
  
“Come on Star.”  
  
David softly urged Star up the stairs to the impatient pack mates above.  
  
The Santa Carla boardwalk was exceedingly crowded as it always seemed to be in the summer.  
  
Rebekah meandered slowly through the crowd following the lead of her younger sister who had her hand grasped tightly in hers.  
  
“Come on. We’re just getting food and returning this movie then we’re going back to the room. What do you want to eat?”  
  
Allison asked over her shoulder.  
  
“I…think that something easy would be nice. I don’t feel so good still.”  
  
“Alright, so let’s return the movie first and we can ask that owner about a place that serves soup or salads or something near here. Sound good?”  
  
“Yeah, that sounds good. Do you think there’s chicken noodle?”  
  
“No place worth their salt wouldn’t have chicken noodle.”  
  
Allison smiled softly over her shoulder, the knitting between her brows belying the soft expression.  
  
“Oh. Good.”  
  
Allison kept them moving slowly but surely through the crowd. She was quietly glaring at people who did not move out of the way quickly enough to suit her.  
  
“Just a little further.”  
  
Allison kept gently tugging on her older sister’s hand to keep her in line behind her.  
  
The bright lights of Max’s Video were blindingly colorful compared to the warm glows of the streetlights and the muted carousel of colors along all of the boardwalk’s rides.  
  
“Can I just sit on the bench right there?”  
  
Allison turned to look at her sister who was gazing longingly at the wooden bench.  
  
“Alright, you stay right here and don’t move. Alright? I’ll be right back.”  
  
Allison helped Rebekah sit and then turned into the doorway. Pushing the glass door in with a cheerful jingle from the bell above the doorway, she almost groaned at the line that she was welcomed with.  
  
Why are there so many people here tonight? Was there a special on rentals? Was everyone and their dog returning their movies?  
  
“Ugh.”  
  
Rebekah tilted her head to stare into the window of the shop behind her.  
  
“I don’t think this is going to be quick.”  
  
Rebekah took off her jacket and rolled it into a small ball before placing it on one side of the bench before lying down and resting her head on it gingerly.  
  
Her feet curled up and a slight shiver wracked her form.  
  
She closed her eyes and let herself drift, shivers occasionally coming when the cool ocean breeze washed over her.  
  
She started as a weight settled over her and a warm scent of leather and ocean swam into her senses.  
  
“What? What? Who?”  
  
Rebekah struggled to get back up and tried to push her hair out of her face.  
  
“Easy little sister.”  
  
She was gently pushed down by a hand on her shoulder. She huffed the hair out of her face and looked blearily at the figure in front of her.  
  
“Dwayne?”  
  
“Yeah, stay down. How’s your head?”  
  
“Everything is a little fuzzy sometimes, so I have to sit down or lie down. I have a major headache. Allison kept waking me up every two hours to make sure that I would wake up. I haven’t been able to check on the back of my head. Ali checked on it but I haven’t tried to. I’m kinda scared to.”  
  
“You can be scared. It’s scary what happened.”  
  
Rebekah turned over to look at Dwayne and gave him a weak grin.  
  
“So, why exactly are you outside alone?”  
  
Dwayne asked, lifting up Rebekah’s legs and sitting down before placing her legs on his lap.  
  
“Allison is inside returning a movie. She’s gonna interrogate the owner for a decent place to get some soup near here. It’s a very important mission. Cause I am taking it so easy today, tonight, tomorrow. And I want chicken noodle.”  
  
“Comfort food?”  
  
“Ohh, yeah.”  
  
They fell silent, sitting comfortably together watching tourists move to and fro.  
  
A loud ding caused them to both turn to look at the door where Allison stomped out of the store.  
  
“Three things: one – we are never coming back here on a Saturday. It is ridiculous and these people are idiots. Two – Mr. Max needs better help and he has a beautiful dog. That is for you Rebekah. When you feel better we will come back so you can see. Three – there’s this little place, the Sea Breeze Tavern, that has a very decent chicken noodle and potato chowder that is slightly more money than we’re used to spending on food, may in fact not let us in further than the doorway, but is close and has soup. So, oh hello Dwayne, are we going for your chicken noodle?”  
  
“Oh, cool. I say we meander there then go to the hotel room. Chill out time and relax. Maybe more painkillers?”  
  
Rebekah moved her legs off of Dwayne and gave him back his jacket before un-crumpling her jacket and putting it on. She got up while steadying herself on Dwayne’s shoulder.  
  
“Alright,” she said swaying softly from side to side, “Let’s get going.”  
  
Dwayne moved swiftly in front of Rebekah before kneeling down.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
Allison questioned him tilting her head to the side.  
  
“Get on my back. You’re not steady enough to walk all the way to that tavern. I know the place too. This will be easier for everyone all around.”  
  
Rebekah stared at Dwayne’s back for a good long moment before subtly shrugging.  
  
“He’s offering.”  
  
She essentially fell onto his back and let him rearrange her to his satisfaction.  
  
He took a few steps to be in line with Allison before kicking out his arm in a sharper angle and giving her a pointed look. Allison sighed before wrapping her arm around his and resting her hand on his bicep.  
  
“Move on, my valiant steed.” Rebekah slurred out.  
  
The small group walked silently until they got near the end of the boardwalk.  
  
“Hey, is that Laddie? Little dude! Laddie boy! Yo! Hey!” Allison surprised them by shouting out.  
  
Rebekah turned to look at her with an eyebrow raised.  
  
“What?” Allison shrugged, “I like him.”  
  
Laddie turned his head from the rest of the pack. His face brightened up from the dejected expression that he had worn since rising that night. He raced to the small group shortly followed by an exuberant Paul and almost as fast Marko. David refused to run but followed at a more sedate pace.  
  
“Hey, you’re looking a little pale there little sister.” Paul interjected energetically.  
  
“How’s the head wound?” Marko asked.  
  
“Well, it’s there. It’s throbbing. You should probably check out the stitches and everything because you were the person who put them in. How did you know how to do that by the way? And early warning: there is still blood all over my head right by the scratch. Ali said that we shouldn’t get it wet.”  
  
“Where are you all going?” David interrupted.  
  
“The Sea Breeze Tavern. We are going to go get some chicken noodle soup. Then we are going to go back to our hotel room and eat and watch TV till we lose consciousness.”  
  
Allison spoke up while getting in between the boys and her sister. She reached out and laced her arm around Laddie’s shoulder before twisting back to look askingly at Dwayne.  
  
“Lead on captain.”  
  
Dwayne nodded before he began to walk away with Allison following shortly afterwards leading Laddie along. The boys shrug before falling in line behind them.  
  
The aura surrounding the group just reeked of familial affection and just a hint of restrained violence.  
  
Rebekah gently sighed and rested her head upon Dwayne’s shoulder, a soft smile upon her lips.  
  
The group was silent as they walked along the boardwalk, Dwayne carrying Rebekah and Allison in the center of the pack.  
  
Rebekah’s eyes kept sliding closed before she would jerk herself awake. Allison held onto Dwayne’s arm barely looking ahead because she was watching her sister so closely. Laddie walked on Dwayne’s left, his little arm reaching up to gently hold onto Dwayne’s jacket underneath Rebekah’s leg.  
  
Marko was strutting behind Dwayne’s group with his arms crossed behind his head, looking nonchalant to the untrained eye. In truth he was watching the strangers around him carefully, ready for any situation that might arise. Paul was walking alongside Allison an arm slung companionably around her shoulders. David was walking by Laddie one of his hands resting on his head.  
  
After five minutes of walking a small weathered wood storefront was visible on the edge of the boardwalk. A small sign was hanging on from a pole near the front door ‘The Sea Breeze Tavern’. It was placed in a more civilized portion of the boardwalk and the people coming to and fro from the restaurant were clothed in fancier garb than any of the group had on.  
  
“Oh boy.”  
  
Rebekah muttered under her breath.  
  
“What’s up, lil sis?”  
  
Marko questioned as he moved closer and placed a hand gently on her back.  
  
“Look at that.” She gestured over to the restaurant. “They are not even going to let us through the door.”  
  
She sighed and then rested her head back on Dwayne’s shoulder. Dwayne looked over at her before readjusting her on his back and striding determinedly towards the restaurant entrance.  
  
David looked over at the crowd acknowledging that the amount of stress that his sisters would be forced to go through walking around that crowd only to be rejected, possibly rudely, would make a poor situation even poorer.  
  
He moved until he was in front of the group forcing Dwayne to stop in his single minded mission to get to the restaurant.  
  
The ugly sneer that Dwayne shot him made a single eyebrow rise up in askance. Dwayne slightly jerked his head towards Rebekah’s head resting on his shoulder.  
  
David smirked.  
  
“How about you just wait here then?”  
  
Rebekah raised her head from Dwayne’s shoulder and attempted to focus on David’s face. He frowned slightly before clearing the expression. It was clear to him that Rebekah had a concussion, the magnitude of that he would let Marko determine.  
  
“What do you want to eat?”  
  
He spoke low and steady and watched as Rebekah’s eyes cleared up from the haze of dazed confusion.  
  
“All I want is some chicken noodle soup.” She turned to look over at Allison. “What do you want Ali?”  
  
Allison gazed at her sister fondly.  
  
“I think some chicken noodle would be just fine.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
Rebekah shifted on Dwayne’s back as if she wanted to get down but Dwayne held onto her legs tightly. Instead she just leaned back almost unbalancing herself but Marko supported her back. She dug into a zippered pocket in the inner left side of her jacket. Pulling out a wad of crumpled bills she separated the group and straightened them out.  
  
Rebekah reached over Dwayne’s shoulder to hand two crumpled twenties at David. He looked down at them like they were something disgusting. Rebekah emphatically tried to get David to take the money.  
  
He finally glanced at her as if she had personally insulted his mother and grandmother.  
  
“Dude, I’m hungry and they aren’t going to just give you the food. Take the money. Do you want anything Laddie hun?”  
  
Rebekah kept the money waving towards David but her attention had moved on to the little boy to her left.  
  
Laddie looked up at her, eyes shining and a small ecstatic smile on his cherubic face.  
  
“I’ll have the same as you if you don’t mind.”  
  
“We don’t mind sweetie.”  
  
Allison spoke as Rebekah reached down to gently run her hand through Laddie’s hair. Allison took the money out of her hand before stomping over to David and shoving the bills into his hand.  
  
“Food costs money. You need this.”  
  
David turned a cold stare on Allison. She twitched and nervously shifted from foot to foot but didn’t back down from his stare. A twitch in the corner of his mouth was the only expression before he turned and walked towards the restaurant.  
  
Dwayne moved to the side of the boardwalk where a small copse of benches were placed. There was a small plaque telling who donated the money for the benches in the center of the little plaza.  
  
An older lady was sitting on one of the benches holding her purse tightly on her lap.  
  
She watched the group walk by her and sit on the benches across from her. She nervously nodded her head towards the group before averting her eyes to the door across the street.  
  
David had just reached the entrance and strode in, the crowd at the door parted for him without a conscious thought.  
  
Marko had moved behind Rebekah on the bench and was gently moving her hair out of the way of the stitches. He hummed gently when he brushed her stitches and she flinched softly. Paul sat down in front of her, Laddie hanging along his side, and began to rambunctiously tell a story about a fisherman and the carousel.  
  
Dwayne and Allison both hovered nearby watching as Marko checked the stitches. There was blood matting her hair near the wound but the stitches themselves seemed fairly clean. The entire area around the wound was mottled black and purple and was raised into a large goose egg.  
  
Marko hummed noncommittally before moving towards Rebekah’s front.  
  
Rebekah was chuckling at the story that Paul was telling but seemed to not be following what the story was about.  
  
Marko moved her head towards him and placed his hand in front of her eyes blocking the light from the streetlamp from shining on her face. He waited a moment before moving his hand back to his side and watched her eyes.  
  
He tsked.  
  
“That’s not a good noise.”  
  
Rebekah spoke wryly staring at Marko.  
  
He blinked thoughts a thousand miles away, before focusing on Rebekah. He shot her a quick grin.  
  
“Good news or not as good news?”  
  
“Tell me the bad news first.”  
  
Paul shook his head.  
  
“Not as good news lil sis. Not the same thing as bad news.”  
  
Allison snorted.  
  
“Fine,” Rebekah conceded, “tell me the ‘not as good’ news first.”  
  
“You have a concussion.”  
  
Rebekah and Allison both looked at Marko incredulously.  
  
“Um, yeah, we already figured that out. I’ve had a couple before so I know how they feel. We know what to do about them.”  
  
Dwayne cast a sharp glance over at Rebekah at that statement but held his peace.  
  
“Hardy har har. This one is a doozy, so pain medicine and I think Allison should wake you up every hour or two again after you fall asleep. You can wash your hair but avoid getting the stitches wet. Try a wet washcloth on the matted hair, it should loosen them up. Other than that food and water and rest.”  
  
“Cool, now good news?”  
  
“The stitches look good. You don’t have any bleeding or popped stitches. Keep it dry and we’ll check on them later on in the week to get an idea of when they can come out.”  
  
“Shit.”  
  
Rebekah cursed and laid her head gently onto the back of the bench.  
  
“Shit?”  
  
Paul questioned bemused.  
  
“We’re supposed to be going back to Chicago at the end of the week. I don’t think I’m going to be able to ride with my head in this condition. And Ali can’t ride for very long before needing a break. It was going to take us a couple of days to get home. Now we’re gonna be late. Shit.”  
  
Allison frowned.  
  
“It’s just a few days. I’m not in school right now, its summer. I don’t have a job and neither do you. Another week here won’t kill us.”  
  
“We only have the motel room for another five days.”  
  
Both of the girls fell silent at the thought of being stranded in Santa Carla with no place to stay. The idea of living on the boardwalk, surrounded by the rough element already out there, with an incapacitating injury gave them chills.  
  
Dwayne began to shift anxiously, feeling the shift in his sisters’ emotions. They were beginning to show tension and fear and that was unacceptable in his estimation. Paul and Marko were not far behind though they both focused more on the fact that their new sisters were going to attempt to leave them behind. They would just make sure that they didn’t leave. Simple enough.  
  
“You can stay with us.”  
  
Laddie broke through the tension with calm ease.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
Rebekah hummed and raised her head to look blearily at Laddie. Allison moved closer and sat on the bench’s armrest.  
  
“You can stay with us. Well, we have to talk to David first but he’ll probably say yes. Then you just stay with us until you get better. That way it’s even easier for Marko to check up on you and you would be able to relax.”  
  
“There are not a lot of places to sleep in that cave you guys stay in.”  
  
Allison leaned into Rebekah’s side as she reached over and gently stroked Laddie’s head.  
  
“Yes there are!” Paul jumped up to enthusiastically pace in front of the small group. “It’s an old hotel! There are plenty of rooms with beds and everything. We’ll get one ready for you!”  
  
He was all bright grins and smiles, eager to make a space that could be called his sisters’ and would encourage them to stay with their new family longer.  
  
Rebekah was significantly less enthused. She was nibbling on her lower lip with her brows drawn together in concentration.  
  
“That hotel isn’t exactly safe, is it?”  
  
Laddie snorted.  
  
“You only looked at the entrance to the hotel. The first couple of rooms in the hallway aren’t that nice, but once you go further on there are rooms that are really nice. We’ve been checking them out for years. It would be fine to go and sleep in them. We might need to change the sheets on the beds though.”  
  
Allison perked up, hope blossoming in her eyes. Rebekah blinked tiredly.  
  
“That could work,” Allison grinned gently nudging Rebekah, “we could just stay for another week or so and then drive back to Chicago.”  
  
Rebekah frowned and rubbed her eyes.  
  
“How’re we supposed to get our luggage home? And it might be more than just two more weeks. I can’t ride with a concussion and you know that.”  
  
Allison waved her hand in a negligent fashion.  
  
“We can ship our luggage home. And it’s the middle of the summer. We can stay here for a month and still get home in time for me to go to school.”  
  
Rebekah chewed her bottom lip.  
  
“We’ll need to call home and tell mom. And your dad.”  
  
Rebekah sounded like she didn’t want to talk to either of them.  
  
“There’s a pay phone on the boardwalk. I’ll explain everything to them. It’ll be fine.”  
  
Rebekah looked severely unimpressed.  
  
Dwayne was looking down at the ground and smiling to himself. A couple of weeks for them to convince his sisters that staying here and joining the pack would be the best thing that they could.  
  
Paul and Marko simply grinned at each other over Rebekah’s shoulders. Laddie moved closer to the seated girl.  
  
An influx of noise made the group turn to see David exiting the restaurant. He was sneering and holding a large white plastic bag.  
  
Rebekah perked up a little stomach growling. She reached her hands over, opening and closing them.  
  
“Ooh, food. Gimme! Gimme!”  
  
David smirked.  
  
Allison nudged Marko further down on the bench with her hip and sat beside her sister who had moved her feet off the bench. David arrived and divvied up the three containers of soup among the group.  
  
Allison peered over towards the empty bag flapping in David’s weak hold.  
  
“No spoons?”  
  
David snorted.  
  
“They didn’t have any plastic spoons.”  
  
A mischievous smirk appeared on his face.  
  
“Soo,” Suddenly three spoons were held in between each of his fingers of the hand not holding the bag, “I snatched some.”  
  
“Wicked.”  
  
She reached over grabbed them and handed one to both Rebekah and Laddie. Laddie sat on the only other unoccupied bench and David and Dwayne followed him to sit on either side of him. They didn’t talk; the only sounds were of slurping and muffled noises of appreciation. It seemed like no time at all before all of their food was done.  
  
Rebekah sighed in contentment leaning to rest against her sister. Allison wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulders and carefully nestled her cheek against her sister’s head. Paul moved Rebekah’s feet off the ground to lie on his lap.  
  
They rested there for thirty minutes or so before Paul placed Rebekah’s feet down on the ground before standing up. He stretched onto his tip toes, arms reaching for the sky.  
  
“Alright, it’s getting late. Time for you guys to go to bed.”  
  
Allison snorted.  
  
“You gonna tuck us in bed?”  
  
Marko nudged her back.  
  
“The sun’s gonna come up soon. Ya need to sleep. We need to sleep.”  
  
Rebekah nodded.  
  
“Yeah, you’re right.”  
  
She moved to get off the bench but Dwayne was in front of her in an instant. She huffed before wrapping her arms around his shoulders and letting him carry her again. They began to walk back to the boardwalk with the rest of the group surrounding them like planets orbiting the sun.  
  
The woman on the park bench stared off towards the group. The longer the group had spent in her vicinity and ignored them the more she relaxed. They looked like ruffians, sounded like ruffians, but acted like a family.  
  
_‘What a lovely group of kids.’_


End file.
